- - - 




______ 




Oass_ X 
Book J:l ~H 1 



ESSAYS 



IX A 



sj* 



SERIES OF LETTERS. 



BY 



JOHN FOSTER, 

AUTHOR OF AN ESSAY ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 



THE TWENTY-SECOND EDITION. 



LONDON : 

ENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, 

1849. 



CLAY. PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL 



A? 4 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



Perhaps it will be thought that pieces written so 
much in the manner of set compositions as the follow- 
ing, should not have been denominated Letters ; it 
may therefore be proper to say, that they are so called 
because they were actually addressed to a friend. 
They were written however with an intention to 
put them in print, if, when they were finished, the 
writer could persuade himself tha I they deserved it ; 
and the temper of even the most inconsiderable pre- 
tenders to literature in these times is too well known 
for any one to be surprised that he could so persuade 
himself. 

When he began these letters, his intention was to 
confine himself within such limits, that essays on 
twelve or fifteen subjects might be comprised in a 
volume. But he soon found that so narrow a space 
v/ould exclude many illustrations not less appropriate 
or useful than any which would be introduced. 

a 2 



IV ADVERTISEMENT. 

It will not seem a very natui&l manner of com- 
mencing a course of letters to a friend, to enter 
formally on a subject in the first sentence. In excuse 
for this abruptness it may be mentioned, that there 
was an introductory letter ; but as it was written in the 
presumption that a considerable variety of subjects 
would be treated in the compass of a moderate number 
of letters, it is omitted, as not being adapted to precede 
what is executed in a manner so different from the 
design. 

When writing which has occupied a considerable 
length, and has been interrupted by considerable 
intervals, of time, which is also on very different 
subjects, and was perhaps meditated under the in- 
fluence of different circumstances, is at last all gone 
over in one short course of perusal, this immediate 
succession and close comparison make the writer 
sensible of some things of which he was not aware in 
the slow separate stages of the progress. On thus 
bringing the following essays under one review, the 
writer perceives some reason to apprehend, that the 
spirit of the third may appear so different from that of 
the second, as to give an impression of something like 
inconsistency. The second may be thought to have 
an appearance of representing that a man may effect 
almost every thing, the third that he can effect scarcely 
any thing. But the writer would say, that the one 
does not assert the efficacy of human resolution and 
effort under the same conditions under which the other 
asserts their inefficacy ; and that therefore there is no 



ADVERTISEMENT. V 

real contrariety between the principles of the two 
essays. From the evidence of history and familiar 
experience Ave know that, under certain conditions, 
and within certain limits, (strait ones indeed,) an 
enlightened and resolute human spirit has great power, 
this greatness being relative to the measures of things 
within a small sphere ; while it is equally obvious that 
this enlightened and resolute spirit, if disregarding 
these conditions, and attempting to extend its agency 
over a much wider sphere, shall find its power baffled 
and annihilated, till it draws back within the boundary. 
Now the great power of the human mind within the 
narrow limit being forcibly and largely insisted on at 
one time, and its impotence beyond that limit, at 
another, the assemblage of sentiments and exempli- 
fications most adapted to illustrate, (and without real 
or considerable exaggeration,) that power alone, will 
form apparently so strong a contrast with the assem- 
blage of thoughts and facts proper for illustrating 
that imbecility alone, that on a superficial view the 
two representations may appear contradictory. The 
author appeals to the experience of such thinking men 
as are accustomed to commit their thoughts to writing, 
whether sometimes, on comparing the pages in which 
they had endeavoured to place one truth in the 
strongest light, with those in which they have en- 
deavoured a strong but yet not extravagant exhibition 
of another, they have not felt a momentary difficulty 
to reconcile them, even while satisfied of the substantial 
justness of both. The whole doctrine on any extensive 



VI ADVERTISEMENT. 

moral subject necessarily includes two views which 
may be considered as its extremes ; and if these are 
strongly stated quite apart from their relations to each 
other, both the representations may be perfectly true, 
and yet may require, in order to the reader's perceiving 
their consisteney, a recollection of many intermediate 
ideas. 

In the fourth essay, it was not intended to take a 
comprehensive or systematic view 01 the causes con- 
tributing to prevent the candid attention and the 
cordial admission due to evangelical religion, but 
simply to select a few which had particularly attracted 
the writer's observation. One or two more would 
have been specified and slightly illustrated, if the 
essay had not been already too long. 



ADVERTISEMENT 
TO THE NINTH EDITION. 



As it is signified in the title-page that the book is 
corrected in this edition, it may not be impertinent to 
indicate by a few sentences the nature and amount of 
the correction. After a revisal which introduced a 
number of small verbal alterations in one of the later 
of the preceding editions, the writer had been willing 
to believe himself excused from any repetition of that 
kind of task. But when it was becoming probable that 
the new edition now printed would be called for, an 
acute literary friend strongly recommended one more 
and a final revisal ; enforcing his recommendation by 
pointing out, in various places, what the writer readily 
acknowledged to be faults in the composition. This 
determined him to try the effect of a careful inspection 
throughout with a view to such an abatement of the 
imperfections of the book, as might make him decidedly 
content to let it go without any future revision. 



Till ADVERTISEMENT TO 

In this operation there has been no attempt at 
novelty beyond such slight changes and diminutive 
additions as appeared necessary in order to give a more 
exact or full expression of the sense. There is not, 
probably, mere of any thing that could properly be 
called new, than might be contained in half-a-dozen 
pages. Correction, in the strict sense, has been the 
object. Sentences, of ill-ordered construction, or loose 
or inconsequential in their connexion, have been 
attempted to be reformed. In some instances a sentence 
has been abbreviated, in others a little extended by the 
insertion of an explanatory or qualifying clause. Here 
and there a sentence has been substituted for one that 
was not easily reducible to the exact direction of the 
line of thought, or appeared feeble in expression. 
In several instances some modification has been re- 
quired to obviate a seeming or real inconsistency 
with what is said in other places. This part of the 
process may have taken off in such instances somewhat 
of the cast of force and spirit, exhibited or attempted 
in the former mode of expression ; and might have, 
been objected to as a deterioration, by a person not 
aware of the reason for the change. Here and there 
an epithet, or a combination of words, bordering on 
extravagance, has yielded to the dictate of the maturer 
judgment, or more fastidious taste, or less stimulated 
feelings, of advanced life, and given place to a some- 
what moderate 1 language. The general course of 
thought is not affected by these minute alterations; 
except that, (as the writer would persuade himself,) it 



THE NINTH EDITION. IX 

is in parts a little more distinctly and palpably brought 
out. The endeavour has been to disperse any mists 
that appeared to lie on the pages, that the ideas might 
present themselves in as defined a form as the writer 
could give to any of them which had seemed obscure, 
and ineffective to their object, from indeterminate or 
involved enunciation. In the revised diction, as in 
the original writing, he has designedly and constantly 
avoided certain artificial forms of phraseology] much 
in conventional use among even good writers ; and 
aimed at falling on the words most immediately, 
naturally, and simply appropriate to the thoughts. 

If his book be of a quality to impart any useful in- 
struction, he will hope that the benefit may be con- 
veyed with perhaps a little more clearness and facility, 
in consequence of these last corrections it will receive 
from his hand. 



January^ 1830. 



CONTENTS. 



ESSAY I. 

ON A MAN'S WRITING MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 

LETTER I. 

Affectionate interest with which we re ert to our past life.. ..It Reserves a 
brief record for our own use.. ..Very few things to be noted of the multitude 
that have occurred.. ..Direction and use of such a review as would be re- 
quired for writing a Memoir.. ..Importance of our past life considered as 
the beginning of an endless duration of existence.... General deficiency of 
self-observation.. ..Oblivion of the greatest number of our past feelings.... 
Occasional glimpses of vivid recollection.. ..Associations with things and 
places.. ..The different and unknown associations of different persons with 
the same places Page 1 

LETTER II. 

All past life an education.. ..Discipline and influence from. ..direct instruction 
...companionship.. .books... scenes of nature. ..and the state of society, p. 10 

LETTER III. 

Very powerful impressions sometimes from particular facts, tending to form 
discriminated characters.. ..Yet very few strongly discriminated and indi- 
vidual characters found.. ..Most persons belong to general classes of cha- 
racter.. ..Immense number and diversity of impressions, of indefinitely 
various tendency, which the moral being has undergone in the course of 
life.. ..Might be expected that such a confusion of influences would not 
permit the formation of any settled character.. ..That such a character is, 
nevertheless, acquired and maintained, is owing to some one leading 
determination, given by whatever means, to the mind, generally in early 
life.. ..Common self-deceptive belief that we have maintained moral recti- 
tude, and the exercise of sound reason, under the impressions that have 
been forming our characters p. 18 

LETTER IV. 

Most of the influences under which the characters of men are forming un- 
favourable to wisdom, virtue, and happiness. ...Proof of this if a number 
of persons, suppose a hundred, were to give a clear account of the circum- 
stances that have most effected the state of their minds.... A few examples 
...a misanthropist. ..a lazy prejudiced thinker.. .a man fancying himself a 
genius... a projector...an antiquary in excess. ..a petty tyrant p. 28 

LETTER V. 

An Atheist.. ..Slight sketch of the process by which a man in the humbler 
order of abilities and attainments may become one p. 34 

LETTER VI. 

The influence of Religion counteracted by almost all other influences.... 
Pensive reflections on the imperfect manifestation of the Supreme Being... 
on the inefficacy of the belief of such a being.. .on the strangeness of that 
inefficacy...and on the debasement and infelicity consequent on it.. ..Hap- 
piness of a devout man p. 42 



Xii CONTENTS. 



LETTER VIT. 



Self-knowledge being supposed the principal object in writing the memoir, 
the train of exterior fortunes and actions will claim but a subordinate 
notice in it.. ..If it were intended for the amusement of the public, the 
writer would do well to fill it rather with incident and action.. ..Yet the 
mere mental history of some men would be interesting to reflecting readers 
...of a man, for example, of a speculative disposition, who has passed 
through many changes of opinion.. ..Influences that warp opinion.. ..Effects 
of time and experience on the notions and feelings cherished in early life. 
...Feelings of a sensible old man on viewing a picture of his own mind, 
drawn by himself when he was young.. ..Failure of excellent designs; 
disappointment of sanguine hopes.... Degree of explicitness required in the 
record. ...Conscience.... Impudence and canting false pretences of many 
writers of " confessions.". ..Rousseau p. 51 



ESSAY II. 

ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

LETTER I. 

Examples of the distress and humiliation incident to an irresolute mind.... 
Such a mind cannot be said to belong to itself. ..Manner in which a man of 
decisive spirit deliberates, and passes into action. ...Caesar.... Such a spirit 
prevents the fretting away, in harassing alternations of will, of the ani- 
mated feelings required for sustaining the vigour of action.. ..Averts im- 
pertinent interference.. ..Acquires, if free from harshness of manner, an 
undisputed and beneficial ascendency over associates. ...Its last resource 
inflexible pertinacity.. ..Instance in a man on a jury p. 67 

LETTER II. 

Brief inquiry into the constituents of this commanding quality.... Physical 
constitution.. ..Possibility, nevertheless, of a firm mind in a feeble body.... 
Confidence in aman's own judgment. ...This an uncommon distinction.... 
Picture of a man who wants it.. ..This confidence distinguished from 
obstinacy.. ..Partly founded on experience.. ..Takes a high tone of inde- 
pendence in devising schemes. ...Distressing dilemmas p. 77 

LETTER III. 

Energy of feeling as necessary as confidence of opinion.. ..Conduct that 
results from their combination.. ..Effect and value of a ruling passion.... 
Great decision of character invests even wicked beings with something 
which we are tempted to admire. ... Satan. ...Zanga.... A Spanish assassin.... 
Remarkable example of this quality in a man who was a prodigal and 
became poor, but turned miser and became rich.... Howard.. ..\Vhitefield.... 
Christian missionaries p. 86 

LETTER IV. 

Courage a chief constituent of the character.... Effect of this in encountering 
censure and ridicule.... Almagro, Pizarro, and De Luques. ...Defiance of 
danger.... Luther.. ..Daniel. ...Another indispensable requisite to decision is 
the full agreement of all the powers of the mind.. ..Lady Macbeth.... 
Richard III. ...Cromwell. ...A father who had the opportunity of saving one 
of two sons from death p. 95 



CONTENTS. Xlll 



LETTER V. 



Formidable power of mischief which this high quality gives to bad men.... 
Care required to prevent its rendering good men unconciliating and over- 
bearing.. ..Independence and overruling manner in consultation.. ..Lord 
Chatham.. ..Decision of character not incompatible with sensibility and 
mild manners.. ..But probably the majority of the most eminent examples 
of it deficient in the kinder affections.. ..King of Prussia.. ..Situations in 
which it may be an absolute duty to act in opposition to the promptings of 
those affections p. 104 

LETTER VI. 

Circumstances tending to consolidate this Character.. ..Opposition.. ..Desertion. 
...Marius ...Satan.... Charles de Moor. ...Success has the same tendency.... 
Caesar.. ..Habit of associating with inferiors.. ..Voluntary means of forming 
or conforming this character.. ..The acquisition of perfect knowledge in the 
department in which we are to act. ...The cultivation of a connected and 
conclusive manner of reasoning.. ..The resolute commencement of action, 
in a manner to commit ourselves irretrievably.... Ledyard.... The choice of a 
dignified order of concerns.. ..The approbation of conscience.. ..Yet melan- 
choly to consider how many of the most distinguished possessors of the 
quality have been wicked p. Ill 



ESSAY III. 

ON THE APPLICATION OP THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 

LETTER I. 

Great convenience of having a number of words that will answer the purposes 
of ridicule or reprobation without having any precise meaning.... Puritan. 
...Methodist.. ..Jacobin. ...The word Romantic of the greatest service to 
persons, who, wanting to show their scorn, have not wherewithal in the 
way of sense or wit.. ..Whenever this epithet is applied, \ci the exact 
meaning be demanded.. ..Does it attribute, to what it is applied to, the 
kind of absurdity prevalent in the works called Romances?. ..That absurdity 
was from the predominance, in various modes, of imagination over judg- 
ment.. ..Mental character of the early Romance writers. ...Opposite cha- 
racter of Cervantes.. ..Delightful, delusive, and mischievous operation of a 
predominant imagination.. ..Yet desirable, for several reasons, that the 
imagination should have this ascendency in early life p. 127 

LETTER II. 

One of the modes of this ascendency justly called Romantic, is, the unfounded 
persuasion of something peculiar and extraordinary in a person's destiny. 
...This vain expectation may be relative to great talent and achievement, 
or to great felicity.. ..Things ardently anticipated which not only cannot be 
attained, but would be unadapted to the nature and condition of man if 
they could.. ..A person that hoped to out-do rather than imitate Gregory 
Lopez, the hermit. ... Absurd expectations of parents. ...Utopian anticipations 
of philosophers.. ..Practical absurdity of the age of chivalry.. ..The extrava- 
gant and exclusive passion for what is grand p t ho 

LETTER III. 

The epithet applicable to hopes and projects inconsistent with the known 
relations between ends and means. ...Reckoning on happy casualties.... 
Musing on instances of good luck.... Novels go more than half the length 
of the older Romance in promoting this pernicious tendency of the mind. 
...Specimen of what they do in this way.. ..Fancy magnifies the smallest 



XIV CONTENTS. 

means into an apparent competence to the greatest ends.. ..This delusive 
calculation apt to be admitted in schemes of benevolence.. ..Projects for 
civilizing savage nations.. ..Extravagant expectations of the efficacy of 
direct instruction, in the lessons of education, and in preaching.. ..Re- 
formers apt to overrate the power of means.. ..The fancy abou f . the omni- 
potence of truth.... Our expectations ought to be limited by what we actually 
see and know of human nature. ...Estimate of that nature... .Pre valence of 
passion and appetite against conviction p. 150 

LETTER IV. 

Christianity the grand appointed mean of reforming the world.... But though 
the religion itself be a communication from heaven, the administration of 
it by human agents is to be considered as a merely human mean, excepting 
so far as a special divine energy is made to accompany it.. ..Its comparatively 
small success proves in what an extremely limited measure that energy, as 
yet, accompanies it.. ..Impotence of man to do what it leaves undone.... 
Irrational to expect from its progressive administration a measure of success 
indefinitely surpassing the present state of its operations, till we see some 
signs of a great change in the Divine Government of the world. ...Folly of 
projects to reform mankind which disclaim Religion.. ..Nothing in human 
nature to meet and give effect to the schemes and expedients of the moral 
revolutionist.... Wretched state of that nature.. ..Sample of the absurd esti- 
mates of its condition by the irreligious menders of society p. 166 

LETTER V. 

Melancholy reflections. ...No consolation amidst the mysterious economy but 
in an assurance that an infinitely good Being presides, and will at length 
open out a new moral world.. ..Yet many moral projectors are solicitous to 
keep their schemes for the amendment of the world clear of any reference 
to the Almighty.. ..Even good men are guilty of placing too much depend- 
ence on subordinate powers and agents.. ..The representations in this 
Essay not intended to depreciate to nothing the worth and use of the whole 
stock of means, but to reduce them, and the effects to be expected from 
them, to a sober estimate.. ..A humble thing to be a man.... Inculcation of 
devout submission, and diligence, and prayer.. ..Sublime quality and inde- 
finite efficacy of this last, as a mean.. ..Conclusion; briefly marking out a 
few general characters of sentiment and action to which, though very un- 
common, the epithet Romantic is unjustly applied p. 175 



ESSAY IV. 



ON SOME OP THE CAUSES BY WHICH EVANGELICAL RELIGION HAS 
BEEN RENDERED UNACCEPTABLE TO PERSONS OP CULTIVATED 
TASTE. 

LETTER I. 

Nature of the displacency with which some of the most peculiar features of 
Christianity are regarded by many cultivated men, who do not deny or 
doubt the divine authority of the religion.. ..Brief notice of the term 
Evangelical p. 188 

LETTER II. 

One of the causes of the displacency is, that Christianity, being the religion 
of a great number of persons of weak and uncultivated minds, presents 
its doctrines to the view of men of taste associated with the characteristics 
of those minds; and though some parts of the religion instantaneously 
redeem themselves from that association by their philosophic dignity, other 
parts may require a considerable eifort to detach them from it. ...This easily 



CONTENTS. XV 

done if the men of taste were powerfully pre-occupied and affected by the 
religion.. ..Reflections of one of them in this case.. ..But the men of taste 
now in question are not in this case.. ..Several specific causes of injurious 
impression, from this association of evangelical doctrines and sentiments 
■with the intellectual littleness of the persons entertaining them.. ..Their 
deficiency and dislike of all strictly intellectual exercise on religion.. ..Their 
reducing the whole of religion to one or two favourite notions, and con- 
tinually dwelling on them. ...The perfect indifference of some of them to 
general knowledge, even when not destitute of means of acquiring it ; and 
the consequent voluntary and contented poverty of their religious ideas and 
language.. ..Their admiration of things in a literary sense utterly bad.... 
Their complacency in their deficiencies.. ..Their injudicious habits and 
ceremonies.. ..Their unfortunate metaphors and similes.. ..Suggestion to 
religious teachers, that they should not run to its last possible extent tk« 
parallel between the pleasures of piety, and those of eating and drinking. 
...Mischief of such practices.. ..Effect of the ungracious collision between 
uncultivated seniors and a young person of literary and philosophic taste. 
...Expostulation with this intellectual young person, on the folly and guilt 
of suffering his mind to take the impression of evangelical religion from 
any thing which he knows to be inferior to that religion itself, as exhibited 
by the New Testament, and by the most elevated of its disciples p. 195 

LETTER III. 

Another cause, the Peculiarity of Language adopted in religious discourse 
and writing.. ..Classical standard of language.. ..The theological deviation 
from it barbarous.. ..Surprise and perplexity of a sensible heathen foreigner 
who, having learnt our language according to its best standard alone, should 
be introduced to hear a public evangelical discourse.. ..Distinctive characters 
of this Theological Dialect.. ..Reasons against employing it.. ..Competence 
of our language to express all religious ideas without the aid of this uncouth 
peculiarity.... Advantages that would attend the use of the language of mere 
general intelligence, with the addition of an extremely small number of word s 
that may be considered as necessary technical terms in theology p. 218 

LETTER IV. 

Answer to the plea, in behalf of the dialect in question, that it is formed from 
the language of the Bible.. ..Description of the manner in which it is so 
formed.. ..This way of employing biblical language very different from 
simple quotation... .Grace and utility with which brief forms of words, 
whether sentences or single phrases, may be introduced from the Bible, if 
they are brought in as pure pieces and particles of the sacred composition, 
set in our own composition as something distinct from it and foreign to it. 
...But the biblical phraseology in the Theological Dialect, instead of thus 
appearing in distinct bright points and gems, is modified and mixed up 
throughout the whole consistence of the diction, so as at once to lose its own 
venerable character, and to give a pervading uncouthness, without dignity, 
to the whole composition.. ..Let the scripture language be quoted often, but 
not degraded into a barbarous compound phraseology.... Even if it were 
advisable to construct the language of theological instruction in some kind 
of resemblance to that of the Bible, it would not follow that it should be 
constructed in imitation of the phraseology of an antique version.. ..License 
to very old theologians to retain in a great degree this peculiar dialect..., 
Young ones recommended to learn to employ in religion the language in 
which cultivated men talk and write on general subjects. ...The vast mass 
of writing in a comprehensive literary sense bad, on the subjects of evan- 
gelical theology, one great cause of the distaste felt by men of intellectual 
refinement.... Several kinds of this bad writing specified p. 239 

LETTER V. 

A grand cause of displacency encountered by evangelical religion among men 
of taste is, that the great school in which that taste is formed, that of 
polite literature, taken in the widest sense of the phrase, is hostile to that 



XVI CONTENTS. 

religion.. ..Modern literature intended principal!}' to be animadverted on..., 
Brief notice of the ancient.. ..Heathen theology, metaphysics, and morality. 
...Harmlessness of the two former: deceptiveness of the last. ...But the 
chief influence is from so much of the history as may be called Biography, 
and from the Poetry.... Homer.... Manner in which the interest he excites is 
hostile to the spirit of the Christian religion. ...Virgil p. 254 

LETTER VI. 

Lucan.... Influence of the moral sublimity of his heroes. ...Plutarch. ...The 
Historians.. ..Antichristian effect of admiring the moral greatness of the 
eminent heathens.. ..Points of essential difference between excellence ac- 
cording to Christian principles, and the most elevated excellence of the 
Heathens.. ..An unqualified complacency in the latter produces an alienation 
of affection and admiration from the former p. 269. 

LETTER VII. 

'When a communication, declaring the true theory of both religion and 
morals, was admitted as coming from heaven, it was reasonable to expect 
that, from the time of this revelation to the end of the world, all by whom 
it was so admitted would be religiously careful to maintain, in whatever 
they taught on subjects within its cognizance, a systematic and punctilious 
conformity to its principles.... Absurdity, impiety, and pernicious effect, of 
disregarding this sovereign claim to conformity.. ..The greatest number of 
our fine writers have incurred this guilt, and done this mischief.. ..They are 
antichristian, in the first place, by omission ; they exclude from their 
moral sentiments the modifying interference of the Christian principles.... 
Extended illustration of the fact, and of its consequences p. 281 

LETTER VIII. 

More specific forms of their contrariety to the principles of Revelation.... 
Their good man not a Christian. ...Contrasted with St. Paul. ...Their theory 

of happiness essentially different from the evangelical Short statement 

of both.. ..In moralizing on life, they do not habitually consider, and they 
prevent their readers from considering, the present state as introductory to 
another. Their consolations for distress, old age, and death, widely dif- 
ferent, on the whole, from those which constitute so much of the value of 
the Gospel. ...The grandeur and heroism in death, which they have repre- 
sented with irresistible eloquence, emphatically and perniciously opposite 
to the Christian doctrine and examples of sublimity and happiness in 
death.. ..Examples from tragedy p. 391 

LETTER IX. 

The estimate of the depraved moral condition of human nature is quite dif- 
ferent in revelation and polite literature. ...Consequently, the Redemption 
by Jesus Christ, which appears with such momentous importance in the 
one, is, in comparison, a trifle in the other.. ..Our fine writers employ and 
justify antichristian motives to action, especially the love of fame.. ..The 
morality of this passion argued ...The earnest repression of it shown to be 
a duty. ...Some of the lighter order of our popular writers have aided the 
counteraction of literature to evangelical religion by careless or malignant 
ridicule of things associated with it.. ..Brief notice, of the several classes of 
fine writers, as lying under the charge of contributing to alienate men of 
taste from the doctrines and moral spirit of the New Testament.. ..Moral 
philosophers.. ..Historians.... Essayists.... Addison... .Johnson.... The Poets.... 
Exception in favour of Milton, *&c... Pope. ...Antichristian quality of his 
Essay on Man. ...Novels. ..Melancholy reflections on the Review.. ..Con- 
clusion ^ ,.D. 31 i 



ESSAY I. 

ON A MAN'S WRITING MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 



LETTER I. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

Every one knows with what interest it is natural to 
retrace the course of our own lives. The past states 
and periods of a man's being are retained in a connexion 
with the present by that principle of self-love, which 
is unwilling to relinquish its hold on what has once been 
his. Though he cannot but be sensible of how little 
consequence his life can have been in the creation, 
compared with many other trains of events, yet he has 
felt it more important to himself than all other trains 
together ; and you will very rarely find him tired of 
narrating again the little history, or at least the favourite 
parts of the little history, of himself. 

To turn this partiality to some account, I recollect 
having proposed to two or three of my friends, that 
they should write, each principally however for his 
own use, memoirs of their own lives, endeavouring not 
so much to enumerate the mere facts and events of 
life, as to discriminate the successive states of the mind, 
and so trace the progress of what may be called the 
character In this progress consists the chief impcr- 

B 



2 

tance of life ; but even on an inferior account also to 
this of what the character has become, and regarded 
merely as supplying a constant series of interests to the 
affections and passions, Ave have all accounted our life 
an inestimable possession which it deserved incessant 
cares and labours to retain, and which continues in 
most cases to be still held with anxious attachment. 
What has been the object of so much partiality, and 
has been delighted and pained by so many emotions, 
might claim, even if the highest interest were out of 
the question, that a short memorial should be retained 
by him who has possessed it, has seen it all to this 
moment depart, and can never recall it. 

To write memoirs of many years, as twenty, thirty, 
or forty, seems, at the first glance, a very onerous task. 
To reap the products of so many acres of earth indeed 
might, to one person, be an undertaking of mighty toil. 
But the materials of any value that all past life can 
supply to a recording pen, would be reduced by a dis- 
cerning selection to a very small and modest amount. 
Would as much as one page of moderate size be deemea 
by any man's self-importance to be due, on an average, 
to each of the days that he has lived ? No man would 
judge more than one in ten thousand of all his thoughts, 
sayings, and actions, worthy to be mentioned, if memory 
were capable of recalling them.* Necessarily a very 
large portion of what has occupied the successive years 
of life was of a kind to be utterly useless for a history 
of it ; being merely for the accommodation of the time. 
Perhaps in the space of forty or fifty years, millions of 
sentences are proper to be uttered, and many thousands 
of affairs requisite to be transacted, or of journeys to 

* An exception may be admitted for the few individuals whose 
daily deliberations, discourses and proceedings, affect the interests 
of en an Kind on a grand scale. 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 3 

be performed, which it would be ridiculous to record. 
They are a kind of material for the common expenditure 
and waste of the day. Yet it is often by a detail of 
this subordinate economy of life, that the works of 
fiction, the narratives of age, the journals of travellers, 
and even grave biographical accounts, are made so 
unreasonably long. As well might a chronicle of the 
coats that a man has worn, with the colour and date of 
each, be called his life, for any important uses of re- 
lating its history. As well might a man, of whom I 
inquire the dimensions, the internal divisions, and the 
use, of some remarkable building, begin to tell me 
how much wood was employed in the scaffolding, where 
the mortar was prepared, or how often it rained while 
the work was proceeding. 

But, in a deliberate review of all that we can re- 
member of past life, it will be possible to select a 
certain proportion which may with the most propriety 
be regarded as the history of the man. What I am 
recommending is, to follow the order of time, and 
reduce your recollections, from the earliest period to 
the present, into as simple a statement and explanation 
as you can, of your feelings, opinions, a-nd habits, and 
of the principal circumstances through each stage that 
have influenced them, till they have become at last 
what they now are. 

Whatever tendencies nature may justly be deemed 
to have imparted in the first instance, you would pro- 
bably find the greater part of the moral constitution of 
your being composed of the contributions of many 
years and events, consolidated by degrees into what 
we call character ; and by investigating the progress 
of the accumulation, you would be assisted to judge 
more clearly how far the materials are valuable, the 
•nixture congruous, and the whole conformation worthy 

b 2 



ON A WAN S WRITING 



to remain unaltered. With respect to any friend who 
greatly interests us, we have a curiosity to obtain an 
accurate account of the past train of his life and 
feelings : and whatever other reasons there may be for 
such a wish, it partly springs from a consciousness how 
much this retrospective knowledge would assist to 
complete our estimate of that friend ; but our estimate 
of ourselves is of more serious consequence. 

The elapsed periods of life acquire importance too 
from the prospect of its continuance. The smallest 
thing rises into consequence when regarded as the 
commencement of what has advanced, or is advancing 
into magnificence. The first rude settlement of Ro- 
mulus would have been an insignificant circumstance, 
and might justly have sunk into oblivion, if Rome had 
not at length commanded the world. The little rill 
near the source of one of the great American rivers, is 
an interesting object to the traveller, who is apprised, 
as he steps across it, or walks a few miles along its 
bank, that this is the stream which runs so far, and 
which gradually swells into so vast a flood. So, while 
I anticipate the endless progress of life, and wonder 
through what unknown scenes it is to take its course, 
its past years lose that character of vanity which would 
seem to belong to a train of fleeting, perishing moments, 
and I see them assuming the dignity of a commencing 
eternity. In them I have begun to be that conscious" 
existence which I am to be through endless duration ; 
and I feel a strange emotion of curiosity about this 
little life, in which I am setting out on such a progress ; 
I cannot be content without an accurate sketch of the 
windings thus far of a stream which is to bear me on 
for ever. I try to imagine how it will be to recollect, 
at a far distant point of my era, what I was when here ; 
and wish if it were possible to retain, as I advance, some 



MEMOIRS Otf HIMSELF. 5 

clear trace of the whole course of my existence within 
the scope of reflection ; to fix in my mind so strong an 
idea of what I have been in this original period of my 
time, that I may possess this idea in ages too remote 
for calculation. 

The review becomes still more important, when I 
learn the influence which this first part of the progress 
will have on the happiness or miserj^ of the next. 

One of the greatest difficulties in the way of executing 
the proposed task will have been caused by the extreme 
deficiency of that self-observation, which is of no common 
habit either of youth or any later age. Men are content 
to have no more intimate sense of their existence than 
what they feel in the exercise of their faculties on ex- 
traneous objects. The vital being, with all its agency 
and emotions, is so blended and absorbed in these its 
exterior interests, that it is very rarely collected and 
concentrated in the consciousness of its own absolute 
self, so as to be recognised as a thing internal, apart 
and alone, for its own inspection and knowledge. Men 
carry their minds as for the most part they carry their 
watches, content to be ignorant of the constitution and 
action within, and attentive only to the little exterior 
circle of things, to which the passions, like indexes, are 
pointing. It is surprising to see how little self-knowledge 
a person not watchfully observant of himself may have 
gained, in the whole course of an active, or even an 
inquisitive life. He may have lived almost an age, and 
traversed a continent, minutely examining its curiosities, 
and interpreting the half-obliterated characters on its 
monuments, unconscious the while of a process operating 
on his own mind, to impress or to erase characteristics 
of much more importance to him than all the figured 
brass or marble that Europe contains. After having 
explored many a cavern or dark ruinous avenue, he 



O ON A MANS WRITING 

may have left undetected a darker recess within where 
there would be much more striking discoveries. He 
may have conversed with many people, in different lan- 
guages, on numberless subjects ; but, having neglected 
those conversations with himself by which his whole 
moral being should have been kept continually dis- 
closed to his view, he is better qualified perhaps to 
uescribe the intrigues of a foreign court, or the progress 
of a foreign trade ; to depict the manners of the Italians, 
or the Turks ; to narrate the proceedings of the Jesuits, 
or the adventures of the gypsies ; than to write the 
history of his own mind. 

If we had practised habitual self-observation, we 
could not have failed to be made aware of much that 
it had been well for us to know. There have been 
thousands of feelings, each of which, if strongly seized 
upon, and made the subject of reflection, would have 
shown us what our character was, and what it was 
likely to be become. There have been numerous in- 
cidents, which operated on us as tests, and so fully 
brought out our prevailing quality, that another person, 
who should have been discriminatively observing us, 
would speedily have formed a decided estimate. But 
unfortunately the mind is generally too much occupied 
by the feeling or the incident itself, to have the slightest 
care or consciousness that any thing could be learnt, or 
is disclosed. In very early youth it is almost inevitable 
for it to be thus lost to itself even amidst its own feelings, 
and the external objects of attention ; but it seems a 
contemptible thing, and certainly is a criminal and 
dangerous thing, for a man in mature life to allow 
himself this thoughtless escape from self-examination, 

We have not only neglected to observe what our 
feelings indicated, but have also in a very great degree 
ceased to remember what they were. We may wonder 



MEMOIRS Of HIMSELF. 7 

how we could pass away successively from so many scenes 
and conjunctures, each in its time of no trifling moment 
in our apprehension, and retain so light an impression, 
that we have now nothing distinctly to tell about what 
once excited our utmost emotion. As to my own mind, ] 
perceive that it is becoming uncertain of the exact nature 
of many feelings of considerable interest, even of com- 
paratively recent date ; and that the remembrance of 
what was felt in very early life has nearly faded away. 
I have just been observing several children of eight or 
ten years old-, in all the active vivacity which enjoys the 
plenitude of the moment without " looking before or 
after ;" and while observing, I attempted, but without 
success, to recollect what I was at that age. I can 
indeed remember the principal events of the period, 
and the actions and projects to which my feelings im- 
pelled me; but the feelings themselves, in their own 
pure juvenility, cannot be revived so as to be described 
and placed in comparison with those of later life. 
What is become of all those vernal fancies which 
had so much power to touch the heart ? What a 
number of sentiments have lived and revelled in the 
soul that are now irrevocably gone ! They died like 
the singing birds of that time, which sing no more. The 
life we then had, now seems almost as if it could not 
have been our own. We are like a man returning, after 
the absence of many years, to visit the embowered 
cottage where he passed the morning of his life, and 
finding only a relic of its ruins. 

Thus an oblivious shade is spread over that early tract 
of our time, where some of the acquired propensities 
which remain in force to this hour may have had their 
origin, in a manner of which we had then no thought 
or consciousness. When we met with the incident, or 
heard the conversation, or saw the spectacle, or felt the 



b ON A MAN S WRITING 

emotion, which were the first causes or occasions of 
some of the chief permanent. tendencies of future life, 
how little could we think that long afterwards we might 
be curiously and in vain desirous to investigate those 
tendencies back to their origin. 

In some occasional states of the mind, we can look 
back much more clearly, and much further, than at 
otner times. I would advise to seize those short in- 
tervals of illumination which sometimes occur without 
our knowing the cause, and in which the genuine 
aspect of some remote event, or long-forgotten image, 
is recovered with extreme distinctness in spontaneous 
glimpses of thought, such as no effort could have com- 
manded ; as the sombre features and minute objects of 
a distant ridge of hills become strikingly visible in the 
strong gleams of light which transiently fall on them. 
An instance of this kind occurred to me but a few 
hours since, while reading what had no perceptible 
connexion with a circumstance of my early youth, 
which probably I have not recollected for many years, 
and which was of no unusual interest at the time it 
happened. That circumstance came suddenly to my 
mind with a clearness of representation which I was not 
able to retain to the end of an hour, and which I could 
not at this instant renew by the strongest effort. I 
seemed almost to see the walls and windows of a par- 
ticular room, with four or five persons in it, who were 
so perfectly restored to my imagination, that I could 
recognise not only the features, but even the momentary 
expressions, of their countenances, and the tones of 
their voices. 

According to different states of the mind too, retro- 
spect appears longer or shorter. It may happen that 
some memorable circumstance of very early life shall 
be so powerfully recalled, as to contract the Avide 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. y 

intervening space, by banishing from the view, a little 
while, all the series of intermediate remembrances , 
but when this one object of memory retires again to its 
remoteness and indifference, and all the others resume 
their proper places and distances, the retrospect appears 
long. 

Places and things which have an association with 
any of the events or feelings of past life, will greatly 
assist the recollection of them. A man of strong 
associations finds memorials of himself already traced 
on the places where he has conversed with happiness 
or misery. If an old tnan wished to animate for a 
moment the languid and faded ideas which he retains 
of his youth, he might walk with his crutch across the 
green, where he once played with companions who are 
now laid to repose probably in another green spot not 
far off. An aged saint may meet again some of the 
affecting ideas of his early piety, in the place where he 
first found it happy to pray. A walk in a meadow, 
the sight of a bank of flowers, perhaps even of some 
one flower, a landscape with the tints of autumn, the 
descent into a valley, the brow of a mountain, the house 
where a friend has been met, or has resided, or has 
died, have often produced a much more lively recol- 
lection of our past feelings, and of the objects and events 
which caused them, than the most perfect description 
could have done ; and we have lingered a considerable 
time for the pensive luxury of thus resuming the long- 
departed state. 

But there are many to whom local associations 
present images which they fervently wish they could 
exorcise ; images which haunt the places where crimes 
had been perpetrated, and which seem to approach and 
glare on the criminal as he hastily passes by, especially 
if in the evening or the night. No local associations are 



10 ON A MANS WRITING 

so impressive as those of guilt. It may here be observed, 
that as each one has his own separate remembrances, 
giving to some places an aspect and a significance which 
he alone can perceive, there must be an unknown 
number of pleasing, or mournful, or dreadful asso- 
ciations, spread over the scenes inhabited or visited by 
men. We pass without any awakened consciousness 
by the bridge, or the wood, or the house, where there 
is something to excite the most painful or frightful 
ideas in another man if he were to go that way, or it 
may be in the companion who walks along with us. 
How much there is in a thousand spots of the earth, 
that is invisible and silent to all but the conscious 
individual ! 

I hear a voice you cannot hear ; 
I see a hand you cannot see. 



LETTER II. 

We may regard our past life as a continued though 
irregular course of education, through an order, or 
rather disorder of means, consisting of instruction 
companionship, reading, and the diversified influences 
of the world. The young mind, in the mere natural 
impulse of its activity, and innocently unthinking of 
any process it was about to undergo, came forward to 
meet the operation of some or all of these plastic 
circumstances. It would be worth while to examine in 
what manner and measure they have respectively had 
their influence on us. 

Few persons can look back to the early period when 
they were most directly the subjects of instruction, 
without a regret for themselves, (which may be ex- 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSEL*. il 

tended to the human race.) that the result of instruction, 
excepting that which leads to evil, bears so small a 
proportion to its compass and repetition. Yet some 
good consequence must follow the diligent inculcation 
of truth and precept on the youthful mind ; and our 
consciousness of possessing certain advantages derived 
from it will be a partial consolation, in the review which 
will comprise so many proofs of its comparative in- 
efficacy. You can recollect, perhaps, the instructions to 
which you feel yourself permanently the most indebted, 
and some of those which produced the greatest effect 
at the time, those which surprised, delighted, or mor- 
tified you. You can partially remember the facility or 
difficulty of understanding, the facility or difficulty of 
believing, and the practical inferences which you drew 
from principles, on the strength of your own reason, and 
sometimes in variance with those made by your in- 
structors. You can remember what views of truth 
and duty were most frequently and cogently presented, 
what passions were appealed to, what arguments were 
employed, and which had the greatest influence. Per- 
haps your present idea of the most convincing and 
persuasive mode of instruction, may be derived from 
your early experience of the ma,nner of those persons 
with whose opinions you felt it the most easy and 
delightful to harmonize, who gave you the most agree- 
able consciousness of your faculties expanding to the 
light, like morning flowers, and who, assuming the 
least of dictation, exerted the greatest degree of power. 
You can recollect the submissiveness with which your 
mind yielded to instructions as from an oracle, or 
the hardihood with which you dared to examine and 
oppose them. You can remember how far they became, 
as to your own conduct, an internal authority of 
reason and conscience, when vou were not under the 



12 ON A MANS WRITING 

inspection of those who inculcated them ; and what 
classes of persons or things around you they contri- 
outed to make you dislike or approve. And you can 
perhaps imperfectly trace the manner and the particulars 
in which they sometimes aided, or sometimes counter- 
acted, those other influences which have a far stronger 
efficacy on the character than instruction can boast. 

Some persons can recollect certain particular sen- 
tences or conversations which made so deep an im- 
pression, perhaps in some instances they can scarcely 
tell why, that they have been thousands of times re- 
called, while innumerable others have been forgotten ; 
or they can revert to some striking incident, coming in 
aid of instruction, or being of itself a forcible instruction, 
which they seem even now to see as plainly as when it 
happened, and of which they will retain a perfect idea 
to the end of life. The most remarkable circumstances 
of this kind deserve to be recorded in the supposed 
memoirs. In some instances, to recollect the instructions 
of a former period will be to recollect too the excellence, 
the affection, and the death, of the persons who gave 
them. Amidst the sadness of such a remembrance, it 
will be a consolation that they are not entirely lost to 
us. Wise monitions, when they return on us with this 
melancholy charm, have more pathetic cogency than 
when they were first uttered by the voice of a living 
friend. It will be an interesting occupation of the 
pensive hour, to recount the advantages which we 
have received from the beings who have left the world, 
and to reinforce our virtues from the dust of those who 
first taught them. 

In our review, we shall find that the companions of 
our childhood, and of each succeeding period, have 
had a great influence on our characters. A creature 
so prone to conformity as man, and at the same time 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 13 

so capable of being moulded into partial dissimilarity 
by social antipathies, cannot have conversed with his 
fellow beings thousands of hours, walked with them 
thousands of miles, undertaken with them numberless 
enterprises, smaller and greater, and had every passion, 
by turns, awakened in their company, without being 
immensely affected by all this association. A large 
share, indeed, of the social interest may have been of so 
common a kind, and with persons of so common an 
order, that the effect on the character has been too 
little peculiar to be perceptible during the progress. 
We were not sensible of it, till we came to some of those 
circumstances and changes in life, which make us aware 
of the state of our minds by the manner in which new 
objects are acceptable or repulsive to them. On re- 
moving into a new circle of society, for instance, we 
could perceive, by the number of things in which we 
found ourselves uncomplacent and unconformable with 
the new acquaintance, the modification which our senti- 
ments had received in the preceding social intercourse. 
But in some instances we have been in a short time 
sensible of a powerful force operating on our opinions, 
tastes, and habits, and reducing them to a greatly 
altered cast. This effect is inevitable, if a young sus- 
ceptible mind happens to become familiarly acquainted 
with a person in whom a strongly individual character 
is sustained and dignified by uncommon mental re- 
sources ; and it may be found that, generally, the 
greatest measure of effect has been produced by the 
influence of a very small number of persons; often of 
one only, whose master-spirit had more power to 
surround and assimilate a young ingenuous being, than 
the collective influence of a multitude of the persons, 
whose characters were moulded in the manufactory of 
custom, and sent forth like images of clay of kindred 



14 ON A MAN'S WRITING 

shape and varnish from a pottery. — I am supposing, 
all along, that the person who writes memoirs of him- 
self, is conscious of something more peculiar than a 
mere dull resemblance of that ordinary form and in- 
significance of character, which it strangely depreciates 
our nature to see such a multitude exemplifying. As 
to the crowd of those who are faithfully stamped, like 
bank notes, with the same marks, with the difference 
only of being worth more guineas or fewer, they are 
mere particles of a class, mere pieces and bits of the 
great vulgar or the small; they need not write their 
history, it may be found in the newspaper chronicle, 
or the gossip's or the sexton's narrative. 

It is obvious, in what I have suggested respecting 
the research through past life, that all the persons who 
are recalled to the mind, as having had an influence on 
us, must stand before it in judgment. It is impossible 
to examine our moral and intellectual growth without 
forming an estimate, as we proceed, of those who re- 
tarded, advanced, or perverted it. Our dearest relations 
and friends cannot be exempted. There will be in some 
instances the necessity of blaming where we would wish 
to give entire praise ; though perhaps some worthy 
motives and generous feelings may, at the same time, 
be discovered in the conduct, where they had hardly 
been perceived or allowed before. But, at any rate, it 
is important that in no instance the judgment be duped 
into delusive estimates, amidst the examination, and so 
as to compromise the principles of the examination, by 
which we mean to bring ourselves to rigorous justice. 
For if any indulgent partiality, or mistaken idea, of 
that duty which requires a kind and candid feeling to 
accompany the clearest discernment of defects, may be 
permitted to beguile our judgment out of the decisions 
of justice in favour of others, self-love, a still more 



MEMOIRS OF HIxMSELF 15 

indulgent and partial feeling, will not fail to practise 
the same beguilement in favour of ourselves. But indeed 
it would seem impossible, besides being absurd, to 
apply one set of principles to judge of ourselves, ana 
another to judge of those with whom we have associated. 

Every person of tolerable education has been con- 
siderably influenced by the books he has read ; and 
remembers with a kind of gratitude several of those 
that made without injury the earliest and the strongest 
impression. It is pleasing at a more advanced period 
to look again into the early favourites ; though the 
mature person may wonder how some of them had once 
power to absorb his passions, make him retire into a 
lonely wood in order to read unmolested, repel the 
approaches of sleep, or, when it came, infect it with 
visions. A capital part of the proposed task would be 
to recollect the books that have been read with the 
greatest interest, the periods when they were read, the 
partiality which any of them inspired to a particular 
mode of life, to a study, to a system of opinions, or to 
a class of human characters ; to note the counteraction 
of later ones (where we have been sensible of it) to 
the effect produced by the former ; and then to en- 
deavour to estimate the whole and ultimate influence. 

Considering the multitude of facts, sentiments, and 
characters, which have been contemplated by a person 
who has read much, the effect, one should think, must 
have been very great. Still, however, it is probable 
that a very small number of books will have the pre- 
eminence in our mental history. Perhaps your memory 
will promptly recur to six or ten that have contributed 
more to your present habits of feeling and thought 
than all the rest together. — It may be observed here, 
that when a few books of the same kind have pleased 
us emphatically, it is a possible ill consequence that 



16 on a man's writing 

they may create an almost exclusive taste, which is 
carried through all future reading, and is pleased only 
with books of that kind. 

It might be supposed that the scenes of nature, an 
amazing assemblage of phenomena if their effect were 
not lost through familiarity, would have a powerful 
influence on opening minds, and transfuse into the in- 
ternal economy of ideas and sentiment something of a 
character and a colour correspondent to the beauty, 
vicissitude, and grandeur, which press on the senses. 
They have this effect on minds of genius; and Beattie's 
Minstrel may be as just as it is a captivating description 
of the perceptions and emotions of such a spirit. But 
on the greatest number this influence operates feebly; 
you will not see the process in children, nor the result 
in mature persons. That significance is unfelt, which 
belongs to the beauties of nature as something more 
than their being merely objects of the senses. And in 
many instances even the senses themselves are so 
deficient in attention, so idly passive, and therefore 
apprehend these objects so slightly, undefinedly, and 
transiently, that it is no wonder the impressions do not 
go so much deeper than the senses as to infuse a mood 
of sentiment, awaken the mind to thoughtful and 
imaginative action, and form in it an order of feelings 
and ideas congenial with what is fair and great in ex- 
ternal nature. This defect of sensibility and fancy is 
unfortunate amidst a creation infinitely rich with grand 
and beautiful objects, which can impart to a mind 
adapted and habituated to converse with nature an 
exquisite sentiment, that seems to come as by an 
emanation from a spirit dwelling in those objects. It 
is unfortunate I have thought within these few minutes 
— while looking out on one of the most enchanting 
nights of the most interesting season of the year, and 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. i7 

hearing the voices of a company of persons, to whom 
I can perceive that this soft and solemn shade over the 
earth, the calm sky, the beautiful stripes of cloud, the 
stars, the waning moon just risen, are things not in the 
least more interesting than the walls, ceiling, and 
candle-light of a room. I feel no vanity in this instance ; 
for perhaps a thousand aspects of night not less striking 
than this, have appeared before my eyes and departed, 
not only without awaking emotion, but almost without 
attracting notice. 

If minds in general are not made to be strongly 
affected by the phenomena of the earth and heavens, 
they are however all subject to be powerfully influenced 
by the appearances and character of the human world. 
I suppose a child in Switzerland, growing up to a man, 
would have acquired incomparably more of the cast of 
his mind from the events, manners, and actions of the 
next village, though its inhabitants were but his occa- 
sional companions, than from all the mountain scenes, 
the cataracts, and every circumstance of beauty or 
sublimity in nature around him. We are all true to 
our species, and very soon feel its importance to us, 
(though benevolence be not the basis of the interest,) 
far beyond the importance of any thing that we see 
besides. Beginning your observation with children, 
you may have noted how instantly they will turn their 
attention away from any of the aspects of nature, how- 
ever rare or striking, if human objects present them- 
selves to view in any active manner. This " leaning 
to our kind" brings each individual not only under the 
influence attending immediate association withafew, but 
under the operation of numberless influences, from all the 
moral diversities of which he is a spectator in the living 
world ; a complicated though insensible tyranny, of 
which every fashion, folly, and vice, may exercise its part. 

c 



'8 on a man's writing 

Some persons world be able to recollect very strong 
and influential impressions made, in almost the first 
years of life, by some of the events and appearances 
which they witnessed in surrounding society. But 
whether the operation on us of the formative power of 
the community began with impressions of extraordinary 
force or not, it has been prolonged through the whole 
course of our acquaintance with mankind. It is no 
little effect for the living world to have had on us, that 
very many of our present opinions are owing to what 
we have seen and experienced in it. That thinking 
which has involuntarily been kept in exercise on it ? 
however remiss and desultory, could not fail to result 
in a number of settled notions, which may be said to 
be shaped upon its facts and practices. We could not 
be in sight of it, and in intercourse with it, without 
the formation of opinions adjusted to what we found 
in it ; and thus far it has been the creator of our mental 
economy. But its operation has not stopped here. It 
will not confine itself to occupying the understanding, 
and yield to be a mere subject for judgments to be 
formed upon ; but all the while that the observer is 
directing on it the exercise of his judicial capacity, it 
is reactively throwing on him various moral influences 
and infections. 



LETTER III. 

A person capable of being deeply interested, and 
accustomed to reflect on his feelings, will have observed 
in himself this subjection to the influences of what has 
been presented co him in society. Their force may 
have been sufficient in some instances to go far toward 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 19 

new-modelling the habit of the mind. Recollect your 
own experience. After witnessing some remarkable 
transaction, or some new and strange department of life 
and manners, or some striking disclosure of character, 
or after listening to some extraordinary conversation, 
or impressive recital of facts, you may have been 
conscious that what you have heard or seen has given 
your mind some one strong determination of a nature 
resulting from the quality of that which has made the 
impression. It is true, that your receiving the effect 
in this one manner implies the existence of an adapted 
predisposition, for many other persons might not have 
been similarly affected ; yet the newly acquired impulse 
might be so different from the former action of your 
mind, and at the same time so strong, as to give you 
the consciousness of a greatly altered moral being. In 
the state thus suddenly formed, some of the previously 
existing dispositions had sunk subordinate, while others, 
which had been hitherto inert, were grown into an im- 
perious prevalence : or even a new one appeared to 
have been originated.* While this state continues, a 
man is in character another man ; and if the moral 
tendency thus excited or created, could be prolonged 
into the sequel of his life, the difference might be such, 
that it would be by means only of his person that he 
would be recognised for the same ; while an observer 
ignorant of the cause would be perplexed and sur- 
prised at the change. Now this permanence of the 
new moral direction might be effected, if the impression 
which causes it were so intensely powerful as to haunt 
him ever after ; or if he were subjected to a long suc- 
cession of impressions of the same tendency, without 

* So great an effect, however, as this last, is perhaps rarely ex* 
perienced from even the most powerful causes, except in early life, 

c 2 



20 on a man's writing 

any powerfully opposite ones intervening to break the 
process. 

You have witnessed perhaps a scene of injustice and 
oppression, and have retired with an indignation which 
has imprecated vengeance. Now supposing that the 
image of this scene were to be revived in your mind 
in all its odiousness, as often as any iniquitous circum- 
stance in society should present itself to your notice, 
and that you had an entire persuasion that your feeling 
was the pure indignation of virtue ; or, supposing that 
you were repeatedly to witness similar instances, without 
diminution of the abhorrence by familiarity with them ; 
the consequence might be that you would acquire the 
spirit of Draco or Minos. 

It is easy to imagine the impression of a few atro- 
cious facts on an ardent constitution, converting a 
humane horror of cruelty into the vindictive fanaticism 
of Montbar, the Buccaneer.* A person of gentler 
sensibility, by accidentally witnessing a scene of distress, 
of which none of the circumstances caused disgust 
toward the sufferers, or indignation against others as 
the cause of the suffering, having once tasted the 
pleasure of soothing woes which perhaps death alone 
can terminate, might be led to seek other instances of 
distress, acquire both an aptitude and a partiality for 
the charitable office, and become a pensive philan- 
thropist. The repulsion which has struck the observer 
of some extravagance of ostentatious wealth, or some 
excess of frivolity and dissipation, and acted on him 
again at sight of every succeeding and inferior instance 
of the same kind, with a greater force than would 
have been felt in these inferior instances, if the offensive 
effect did not run into the vestiges of the first indelible 

AVbe Raynal's History of the Tndies. 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 21 

impression, may produce a cynic or a miser, a recluse 
or a philosopher. Numberless other illustrations might 
be brought to shew how much the characters of human 
beings, entering on life with unwarned carelessness of 
heart, are at the mercy of the incalculable influences 
which may strike them from any point of the sur- 
rounding world. 

It is true that, notwithstanding so many influences 
are acting on men, and some of them apparently of a 
kind and of a force to produce in their subjects a 
notable peculiarity, comparatively few characters de- 
terminately marked from all around them are found to 
arise. In looking on a large company of persons 
whose dispositions and pursuits are substantially alike, 
we cannot doubt that several of them have met with 
circumstances, of which the natural tendency must 
have been to give them a determination of mind ex- 
tremely dissimilar to the character of those whom they 
now so much resemble. And why does the influence 
of such circumstances fail to produce such a result ? 
Partly, because the influences which are of a more 
peculiar and specific operation are overborne and lost 
in that wide general influence, which accumulates and 
conforms each individual to the crowd; and partly, 
because even were there no such general influence to 
steal away the impressions of a more peculiar tendency, 
few minds are of so fixed and faithful a consistence as 
to retain, in continued efficacy, impressions of a kind 
which the common course of life is not adapted to 
reinforce, nor prevailing example to confirm. The 
mind of the greater proportion of human beings, if 
attempted to be wrought into any boldly specific form, 
proves like a half-fluid substance, in which angles or 
circles, or any other figures may be cut, but which re- 
covers, while you are looking, its former state, and 



22 ON A MANS WRITING 

closes them up ; or like a quantity of dust, which may be 
raised into momentary reluctant shapes, but which is re- 
lapsing, amidst the operation, towards its undefined mass. 
But if characters of strong individual peculiarity are 
somewhat rare, such as are marked with the respective 
distinctions which discriminate moral classes are very 
numerous ; the decidedly avaricious for instance ; the 
devoted slaves of fashion ; and the eager aspirers to 
power, in however confined a sphere, the little Alex- 
anders of a mole-hill, quite as ambitious, in their way, 
as the great Alexander of a world. It is observable 
here, how much more largely the worse prominences of 
human character meet our attention than the better. 
And it is a melancholy illustration of the final basis of 
character, human nature itself, that both the dis- 
tinctions which designate a bad class, and those which 
constitute a bad individual peculiarity, are attained 
with far the greatest frequency and facility. While, 
however, I have the most entire conviction of this 
mighty inclination to evil, which is the grand cause of 
all the diversified forms of evil ; and while, at the same 
time, I hold the vulgar belief of a great native dif- 
ference between men, in the original temperament of 
those principles, which are to be unfolded by the 
progress of time into intellectual powers and moral 
dispositions ; I yet cannot but perceive that the im- 
mediate and occasional causes of the greater portion of 
the prominent actual character of human beings, are to 
be found in those moral elements through which they 
pass. And if one might be pardoned for putting in 
words so fantastic an idea, as that of its being possible 
for a man to live back again to his infancy, through all 
the scenes of his life, and to give back from his mind 
and character, at each time and circumstance, as he 
repassed it, exactly that which he took from it, when 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 23 

he was there before, it would be most curious to see the 
fragments and exuvice of the moral man lying here and 
there along the retrograde, path, and to find what he 
was in the beginning of this train of modifications ana 
acquisitions. Nor can it be doubted that any man, 
whose native tendencies were ever so determinate, and 
who has passed through a course of events and interests 
adapted to develope and confirm them according tc 
their determination, might, by being led through a dif- 
ferent train, counteractive to those native tendencies, 
have been an extremely different man from what he now 
is. — I am supposing his mind to be in either case equally 
cultivated, and referring to another kind of difference 
than that which would in any case be made by the dif- 
ferent measure or quantity, if I may express it so, of 
intellectual attainment. 

Here a person of your age might pause, and look 
back with great interest on the world of circumstances 
through which life has been drawn. Consider what 
thousands of situations, appearances, incidents, persons, 
you have been present with, each in its time. The 
review would carry you over something like a chaos, 
with all the moral, and all other elements, confounded 
together ; and you may reflect till you begin almost to 
wonder how an individual retains the same essence 
through all the diversities, vicissitudes, and counter- 
actions of influence, that operate on it during its 
progress through the confusion. While the essential 
being might, however, defy the universe to extinguish, 
absorb, or transmute it, you will find it has come out 
with dispositions and habits which will shew where it 
has been, and what it has undergone. You may descry 
on it the marks and colours of many of the things by 
which it has, in passing, been touched or arrested. 

Consider the number of meetings with acquaintance, 



-^ ON A MAN'S WRITING 

friends, or strangers ; the number of conversations you 
have held or heard ; the number of exhibitions of good 
or evil, virtue or vice ; the number of occasions on 
which you have been disgusted or pleased, moved to 
admiration or to abhorrence ; the number of times 
that you have contemplated the town, the rural cottage, 
or verdant fields ; the number of volumes you have 'read; 
the times that you "have looked over the present state of 
the world, or gone by means of history into past ages ; 
the number of comparisons of yourself with other 
persons, alive or dead, and comparisons of them with 
one another; the number of solitary musings, of solemn 
contemplations of night, of the successive subjects of 
thought, and of animated sentiments that have been 
kindled and extinguished. Add all the hours and 
causes of sorrow which you have known. Through 
this lengthened, and, if the number could be told, 
stupendous multiplicity of things, you have advanced, 
while all their heterogeneous myriads have darted in- 
fluences upon you, each one of them having some 
definable tendency. A traveller round the globe would 
not meet a greater variety of seasons, prospects, and 
winds, than you might have recorded of the circum- 
stance capable of affecting your character, during 
your journey of life. You could not wish to have 
drawn to yourself the agency of a vaster diversity of 
causes ; you could not wish, on the supposition that 
you had gained advantage from all these, to wear the 
spoils of a greater number of regions. The formation 
of the character from so many materials reminds one 
of that mighty appropriating attraction, which, on the 
fanciful hypothesis that the resurrection should re- 
assemble the same particles which composed the body 
before, must draw them from dust, and trees, and 
animals, from ocean, and winds. 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 25 

It would scarcely be expected that a being which 
should be conducted through such anarchy of discipline, 
in which the endless crowd of influential powers seem 
waiting, each to take away what the last had given, 
should be permitted to acquire, or to retain, any settled 
form of qualities at all. The more probable result 
would be, either several qualities disagreeing with one 
another, or a blank neutrality. And in fact, a great 
number of nearly such neutralities are found every 
where ; persons, who, unless their sharing of the 
general properties of human nature, a little modified 
by the insignificant distinction of some large class, can 
be called character, have no character. It is therefore 
somewhat strange, if you, and if other individuals, have 
come forth with moral features of a strongly marked 
and consistently combined cast, from the infinity of 
miscellaneous impressions. If the process has been so 
complex, how comes the result to be apparently so 
simple ? How has it happened that the collective effect 
of these numerous and jarring operations on your mind, 
is that which only a, few of these operations would have 
seemed adapted to produce, and quite different from that 
which many others of them should naturally have pro- 
duced, and do actually produce in many other persons ? 
Here you will perceive that some one capital determi- 
nation must long since have been by some means esta- 
blished in your mind, and that, during your progress, 
this predominant determination has kept you susceptible 
of the effect of some influences, and fortified against 
many others. Now, what was the prevailing determi- 
nation, whence did it come, how did it acquire its 
power ? Was it an original tendency and insuppressible 
impulse of your nature ; or the result of your earliest 
impressions ; or of some one class of impressions 
repeated oftener than any other ; or of one single im- 



26 on a man's writing 

pression of extreme force ? What was it, and whence 
did it come ? This is the great secret in the history of 
character ; for, it is scarcely necessary to observe, that 
as soon as the mind is under the power of a predo- 
minant tendency, the difficulty of growing into the 
maturity of that form of character, which this tendency 
promotes or creates, is substantially over. Because, 
when a determined principle is become ascendant, it 
not only produces a partial insensibility to all im- 
pressions that would counteract it, but also continually 
augments its own ascendency, by means of a faculty or 
fatality of finding out every thing, and attracting to 
itself every cause of impression, that is adapted to 
coalesce with it and strengthen it ; like the instinct o* 
animals, which instantly selects from the greatest 
variety of substances those which are fit for their nu- 
triment. Let a man have some leading and decided 
propensity, and it will be surprising to see how many 
more things he will find, and Low many more events 
will happen, than any one could have imagined, of a 
nature to reinforce it. And sometimes even circum- 
stances which seemed of an entirely counteractive 
order, are strangely seduced by this predominant 
principle into an operation that confirms it ; just in the 
same manner as polemics most self- complacently avow 
their opinions to be more firmly established by the 
strongest objections of the opponent. 

It would be easy to enlarge without end on the 
influences of the surrounding world in forming the 
character of each individual. Yet while there is no 
denying that such influences are effectively operating, 
a man may be unwilling to allow that he has been 
quite so servilely passive, as he would probably find 
that he has been, if it were possible for him to make a 
complete examination. He may be disposed to think 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 27 

that his reason has been an independent power, has 
kept a strict watch, and passed a right judgment on 
his moral progress, has met the circumstances of the 
external world on terms of examination and authority, 
and has permitted only such impressions to be received, 
or at least only such consequences to follow from them, 
as it wisely approved. But I would tell him, that he 
has been a very extraordinary man, if the greater part 
of his time has not been spent entirely without a thought 
of reflecting what impressions were made on him, or 
what their tendency might be ; and even without a 
consciousness that the effect of any impressions was 
of importance to his moral habits. He may be assured 
that he has been subjected to many gentle gradual 
processes, and has met many critical occasions, on 
which, and on the consequences of which to himself, 
he exercised no attention or opinion. And again, it is 
unfortunately true, that even should attention be awake, 
and opinions be formed, the faculty which forms them 
is very servile to the other parts of the human con- 
stitution. If it could be extrinsic to the man, a kind 
of domestic Pythia, or an attendant genius, like the 
demon of Socrates, it might then be a dignified 
regulator of the influences which are acting on his 
character, to decide what should or should not be per- 
mitted to affect him, and in what manner ; though even 
then its disapproving dictates might tail against some 
extremely powerful impression which might give a 
temporary bias, and such repetitions of that impression 
as should confirm it. But the case is, that this faculty, 
though mocked with imperial names, being condemned 
to dwell in the company of far more active powers than 
itself, and earlier exercised, becomes humbly obsequious 
to them. The passions easily beguile this majestic 
reason, or judgment, into neglect, or bribe it into 



28 on a man's writing 

acquiescence, or repress it into silence, while they 
receive the impressions, and while they acquire from 
those impressions that determinate direction, which will 
constitute the character. If, after thus much is done 
during the weakness, or without the notice, or without 
the leave, or under the connivance or corruption of 
the judgment, it be called upon to perform its part in 
estimating the quality and actual effect of the modifying 
influences, it has to perform this judicial work with just 
that degree of rectitude which it can have acquired 
and maintained under the operation of those very in- 
fluences. In acting the judge, it is itself in subjection 
to the effect of those impressions of which its office 
was, to have previously decided whether they should 
not be strenuously repelled. Thus its opinions will 
unconsciously be perverted; like the answers of the 
ancient oracles, dictated for the imaginary god by 
beings of a very terrestrial sort, though the sly inter- 
vention could not be perceived. It is quite a vulgar 
observation, how pleased a man may be with the for- 
mation of his own character, though you smile at the 
gravity of his persuasion, that his tastes, preferences, 
and qualities, have on the whole grown up under the 
sacred and faithful guardianship of judgment, while, in 
fact, his judgment has accepted every bribe that has 
been offered to betrav him. 



LETTER IV. 

You will agree with me, that in a comprehensive view 
of the influences which have formed, and are forming, 
the characters of men, we shall find, religion excepted, 
but little cause to felicitate our species. Make the sup- 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 29 

position that any assortment of persons, of sufficient 
number to comprise the most remarkable distinctions 
of character, should write memoirs of themselves, so 
exactly and honestly telling the story, and exhibiting 
so clearly the most effective circumstances, as to explain, 
to your discernment at least, if not to their own con- 
sciousness, the main process by which their minds have 
attained their present state. If they were to read these 
memoirs to you in succession, and if your benevolence 
could so long be maintained in full exercise, and your 
rules for estimating lost nothing of their determinate 
principle in their application to such a confusion of 
subjects, you would often, during the disclosure, regret 
to observe how many things may be the causes of irre- 
trievable mischief. Why is the path of life, you would 
say, so haunted as if with evil spirits of every diversity 
of noxious agency, some of which may patiently ac- 
company, or others of which may suddenly cross, the 
unfortunate wanderer? And you would regret to 
observe into how many forms of intellectual and moral 
perversion the human mind readily yields itself to be 
modified. 

As one of the number concluded the account of 
himself, your observation would be, I perceive with 
compassion the process under which you have become 
a misanthropist. If your juvenile ingenuous ardour 
had not been chilled on your entrance into society, 
where your most favourite sentiments were not at all 
comprehended by some, and by others deemed wise and 
proper enough — perhaps for the people of the millen- 
nium; if you had not felt the mortification of relations 
being uncongenial, of persons whom you w r ere anxious 
co render happy being indifferent to your kindness, or 
of apparent friendships proving treacherous or trans- 
itory; if you had not met with such striking instances 



SO ON A MAN S WRITING 

of hopeless stupidity in the vulgar, or of vain self- 
importance in the learned, or of the coarse or super- 
cilious arrogance of the persons whose manners were 
always regulated by the consideration of the proportion 
of gold and silver by which they were better than you ; 
if your mortifications had not given you a keen faculty 
of perceiving the all-pervading selfishness of mankind, 
while, in addition, you had perhaps a peculiar oppor- 
tunity to observe the apparatus of systematic villany, 
by which combinations of men are able to arm their 
selfishness to oppress or ravage the world — you might 
even now, perhaps, have been the persuasive instructor 
of beings, concerning whom you are wondering why 
they should have been made in the form of rationals ; 
you might have conciliated to yourself and to goodness, 
where you repel and are repelled; you might have been 
the apostle and pattern of benevolence, instead of 
envying the powers and vocation of a destroying angel. 
Yet not that the world should bear all the blame. 
Frail and changeable in virtue, you might perhaps have 
been good under a series of auspicious circumstances ; 
but the glory had been to be victoriously good against 
malignant ones. Moses lost none of his generous 
concern for a people, on whom you would have invoked 
the waters of Noah or the fires of Sodom to return ; 
and that Greater than Moses, who endured from men 
such a matchless excess of injustice, while for their 
sake alone he sojourned and suffered on earth, was not 
alienated to misanthropy, in his life, or at his death. 

A second sketch might exhibit external circumstances 
not producing any effect more serious than an in- 
tellectual stagnation. When it was concluded, your 
reflection might be, if I did not know that mental 
freedom is a dangerous thing, peculiarly in situations 
wnere the possessor would feel it a singular attainment ; 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 81 

and if 1 did not prefer even the quiescence of un- 
exaraining belief, when tolerably right in the most 
material points, to the indifference or scepticism which 
feels no assurance or no importance in any belief, or to 
the weak presumption that darts into the newest and 
most daring opinions as therefore true — I should deplore 
that your life was destined to preserve its sedate course 
so entirely unanimated by the intellectual novelties of 
the age, the agitations of ever-moving opinion; and 
under the habitual and exclusive influence of one in- 
dividual, worthy perhaps and in a certain degree sen- 
sible, but of contracted views, whom you have been 
taught and accustomed to regard as the comprehensive 
repository of all the truth requisite for you to know, and 
from whom you have derived, as some of your chief 
acquisitions, a contented assurance that the trouble of 
inquiry is needless, and a superstitious horror of inno- 
vation, without even knowing what points are threatened 
by it. 

At the end of another s disclosure, you would say, 
How unfortunate, that you could not believe there 
might be respectable and valuable men, who were not 
born to be wits or poets. And how unfortunate were 
those first evenings that you were privileged to listen 
to a company of men, who could say more fine things 
in an hour than their biographers will be able, even with 
the customary aid of laudatory fiction, to record them 
to have done in the whole space of life. It was then you 
discovered that you too were of the progeny of Apollo, 
and that you had been iniquitously transferred at 
your nativity into the hands of ignorant foster-parents, 
who had endeavoured to degrade and confine you to 
the sphere of regular employments and sober satis- 
factions. But, you would " tower up to the region of 
your sire." You saw what wonderful things might be 



32 on a man's writing 

found to be said on all subjects; you found it not so 
very difficult yourself to say different things from other 
people : and every thing that was not common dulness, 
was therefore pointed, — every thing that was not sense 
by any vulgar rule, was therefore sublime. You adopted 
a certain vastitude of phrase, mistaking extravagance 
of expression for greatness of thought. You set your- 
self to dogmatize on books, and the abilities of men, 
but especially on their prejudices; and perhaps to de- 
molish, with the air of an exploit, some of the trite 
observations and maxims current in society. You 
awakened and surprised your imagination, by imposing 
on it a strange new tax of colours and metaphors; a 
tax reluctantly and uncouthly paid, but perhaps in some 
one instance so luckily, as to gain the applause of the 
gifted (if they were not merely eccentric) men, into 
whose company you had been elated by admittance. 
This was to you the proof and recognition of fraternity : 
and it has since been the chief question that has inter- 
ested you with each acquaintance and in each company, 
whether they too could perceive what you were so happy 
to have discovered, yet so anxious that the acknow- 
ledgment of others should confirm. Your own per- 
suasion, however, became as pertinacious as ivy climbing 
a wall. It was almost of course to attend to necessary 
pursuits with reluctant irregularity, though suffering 
by the consequences of neglecting them, and to feel 
indignant that genius should be reproached for the 
disregard of these ordinary duties and employments 
to which it ought never to have been subjected. 

During ^projectors story of life and misfortunes, you 
might regret that he should ever have heard of Harri- 
son's time-piece, the perpetual motion, or the Greek fire. 

After an antiquary's history, you might be allowed 
to congratulate yourself on not having fallen under 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 33 

the spell which confines a human soul to inhabit, like 
a spider in one of the comers, a dusty room, con- 
secrated with religious solemnity to old coins, rusty 
knives, illuminated mass books, swords and spurs of 
forgotten kings, and slippers of their queens; with 
perhaps a Roman helmet, the acquisition of which was 
the first cause of the collection and of the passion, 
elevated imperially over the relics of kings and queens 
and the whole museum, as the eagle was on^e in " proud 
eminence" over subjugated kingdoms. And you might 
be inclined to say, I wish that helmet had been a pan 
for charcoal, or had been put on the head of one of 
the quiet equestrian warriors in the Tower, or had aided 
the rattlings of Sir Godfrey, haunting the baron's castle 
where he was murdered, or had been worn by Don 
Quixote, instead of the barber's basin, or had been the 
cauldron of Macbeth's witches, or had been in any 
other shape, place, or use, rather than dug up an anti- 
quity, in a luckless hour, in a bank near your garden. 
I compassionate you, would, in a very benevolent 
hour, be your language to the wealthy unfeeling tyrant 
of a family and a neighbourhood^ who seeks, in the 
overawed timidity and unretaliated injuries of the un- 
fortunate beings within his power, the gratification that 
should have been sought in their happiness. Unless 
you had brought into the world some extraordinary 
refractoriness to the influence of evil, the process that 
you have undergone could not fail of being efficacious. 
If your parents idolized their own importance in their 
son so much, that they never themselves opposed your 
inclinations, nor permitted it to be done by any subject 
to their authority ; if the humble companion, sometimes 
summoned to the honour of amusing you, bore your 
caprices and insolence with the meekness without which 
he had lost his privilege ; if you could despoil the garden 

D 



34 ON A MAN S WRITING 

of some harmless dependent neighbour of the carefully 
reared flowers, and torment his little dog or cat, without 
his daring to punish you or to appeal to your infatuated 
parents ; if aged men addressed you in a submissive 
tone, and with the appellation of " Sir/' and their aged 
wives uttered their wonder at your condescension, and 
pushed their grandchildren away from around the fire 
for your sake, if you happened, though with the strut 
of supercilious pertness, and your hat on your head, 
to enter one of their cottages, perhaps to express your 
contempt of the homely dwelling, furniture, and fare ; 
if, in maturer life, you associated with vile persons, 
who would forego the contest of equality, to be your 
allies in trampling on inferiors ; and if, both then and 
since, you have been suffered to deem your wealth the 
compendium or equivalent of every ability, and every 
good quality — it would indeed be immensely strange 
if you had not become, in due time, the miscreant, who 
may thank the power of the laws in civilized society, 
that he is not assaulted with clubs and stones ; to whom 
one could cordially wish the opportunity and the con- 
sequences of attempting his tyranny among some such 
people as those submissive sons of nature in the forests 
of North America ; and whose dependents and domestic 
relations may be almost forgiven when they shall one 
day rejoice at his funeral. 



LETTER V. 

i will imagine only one case more, on which you 
would emphatically express your compassion, though 
for one of the most daring beings in the creation, a 
contemner of God, who explodes his laws by denying 
his existence. 



MEM31RS OF HIMSELF. 'Sb 

If you were so unacquainted with mankind, that 
such a being might be announced to you as a rare or 
singular phenomenon, your conjectures, till you saw 
and heard the man, at the nature and the extent of the 
discipline through which he must have advanced, would 
be led toward something extraordinary. And you 
might think that the term of that discipline must have 
been very long; since a quick train of impressions, a 
short series of mental gradations, within the little space 
of a few months and years, would not seem enough to 
have matured such a portentous heroism. Surely the 
creature that thus lifts his voice, and defies all invisible 
power within the possibilities of infinity, challenging 
whatever unknown being may hear him, and may ap- 
propriate that title of Almighty which is pronounced 
in scorn, to evince his existence, if he will, by his 
vengeance, was not as yesterday a little child that 
would tremble and cry at the approach of a diminutive 
reptile. 

But indeed it is heroism no longer, if he know that 
there is no God. The wonder then turns on the great 
process, by which a man could grow to the immense 
intelligence which can know that there is no God. 
What ages and what lights are requisite for this 
attainment! This intelligence involves the very attri- 
butes of Divinity, while a God is denied. For unless 
this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment in 
every place in the universe, he cannot know but there 
may be in some place manifestations of a Deity, by 
which even he would be overpowered. If he does not 
know absolutely every agent in the universe, the one 
that he does not know may be God. If he is not 
himself the chief agent in the universe, and does not 
know what is so, that which is so may be God. If he 
is not in absolute possession of all the propositions 



36 ON a man's writing 

that constitute universal truth, the one which he wants 
may be, that there is a God. If he cannot with cer- 
tainty assign the cause of all that he perceives to exist, 
that cause may be a God. If he does not know every 
thing that has been done in the immeasurable ages that 
are past, some things may have been done by a God 
Thus, unless he knows all things, that is, precludes all 
other divine existence by being Deity himself, he 
cannot know that the Being whose existence he rejects, 
does not exist. But he must know that he does not 
exist, else he deserves equal contempt and compassion 
for the temerity with which he firmly avows his rejec- 
tion and acts accordingly. And yet a man of ordinary 
age and intelligence may present himself to you with 
the avowal of being thus distinguished from the crowd; 
and if he would describe the manner in which he has 
attained this eminence, you would feel a melancholy 
interest in contemplating that process of which the 
result is so prodigious. 

If you did not know that there are more than a few 
such examples, you would, say, in viewing this result, 
I should hope this is the consequence of some malig- 
nant intervention so occasional that ages may pass 
away before it return among men ; some peculiar con- 
junction of disastrous influences must have lighted on 
your selected soul ; you have been struck by that 
energy of evil which acted upon the spirits of Pharaoh 
and Epiphanes. But give your own description of 
what you have met with, in a world which has been 
deemed to present in every part the indications of a 
Deity. Tell of the mysterious voices which have 
spoken to you from the deeps of the creation, falsifying 
the expressions marked on its face. Tell of the new 
ideas, which, like meteors passing over the solitary 
wanderer, gave you the first glimpses of truth while 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 37 

benighted in the common belief of the Divine exis- 
tence. Describe the whole train of causes which have 
operated to create and consolidate that state of mind, 
which you carry forward to the great experiment of fu- 
turity under a different kind of hazard from all other 
classes of men. 

It would be found, however, that those circum- 
stances, by which even a man who had been presented 
from his infancy with the ideas of religion, could be 
elated into a contempt of its great object, were far 
from being extraordinary. They might have been 
incident to any man, whose mind had been cultivated 
and exercised enough to feel interested about holding 
any system of opinions at all ; whose pride had been 
gratified in the consciousness of having the liberty of 
selecting and changing opinions ; and whose habitual 
assent to the principles of religion, had neither the 
firmness resulting from decisive arguments, nor the 
warmth of pious affection.* Such a person had only, in 
the first place, to come into intimate acquaintance with 
a man, who had the art of alluding to a sacred subject 
in a manner which, without appearing like intentional 

* It will be obvious that I am describing the progress of one of 
the humbler order of aliens from all religion, and not that by which 
the great philosophic leaders have ascended the dreary eminence 
where they look with so much complacency up to a vacant heaven, 
and down to the gulf of annihilation. Their progress undoubtedly is 
much more systematic and deliberate, and accompanied often by a 
laborious speculation, which, though in ever so perverted a train, the 
mind is easily persuaded to identify, because it is laborious, with the 
search after truth and the love of it. While, however, it is in a 
persevering train of thought, and not by the hasty movements of a 
more vulgar mind, that they pursue their deviation from some of the 
principles of religion into a final abandonment of it all, they are very 
greatly mistaken if they assure themselves that the moral causes 
which contribute to guide and animate their progress are all of a 
sublime order ; and if they could be fully revealed to their own 
view, they might perhaps be severely mortified to find what vulgar 



38 on a man's writing 

contempt, divested it of its solemnity : and who had 
possessed himself of a few acute observations or plau- 
sible maxims, not explicitly hostile to revealed religion, 
but which, when opportunely brought into view in 
connexion with some points of it, tended to throw a 
degree of doubt on their truth and authority. Espe- 
cially if either or both of these men had any decided 
moral tendencies and pursuits of a kind which Chris- 
tianity condemned, the friend of intellectual and moral 
freedom was assiduous to insinuate, that, according to 
the principles of reason and nature at least, it would 
be difficult to prove the wisdom or the necessity of 
some of those dictates of religion, which must, how- 
ever, be admitted, be respected, because divine. Let 
the mind have once acquired a feeling, as if the sacred 
system might in some points be invalidated, and the 
involuntary inference would be rapidly extended to 
other parts, and to the whole. Nor was it long pro- 
bably before this new instructor plainly avowed his own 
entire emancipation from a popular prejudice, to which 
he was kindly sorry to find a sensible young man still 
in captivity. But he had no doubt that the deductions 

motives, while they were despising vulgar men, have ruled their 
intellectual career. Pride, which idolizes self, which revolts at 
every thing that comes in the form of dictates, and exults to find 
that there is a possibility of controverting whether any dictates come 
from a greater than mortal source ; repugnance as well to the severe 
and comprehensive morality of the laws reputed of divine appoint- 
ment, as to the feeling of accountableness to an all-powerful 
Authority, that will not leave moral laws to be enforced solely by 
their own sanctions ; contempt of inferior men; the attraction of a 
few brilliant examples; the fashion of a class; the ambition of 
showing what ability can do, and what boldness can dare — if such 
things as these, after all, have excited and directed the efforts of a 
philosophic spirit, the unbelieving philosopher must be content to 
acknowledge plenty of companions and rivals among little men, 
who are quite as capable of being actuated by such elevated prin- 
ciples as himself. 



MEMOIRS O* HIMSELF. 39 

of enlightened reason would successfully appeal to 
every liberal mind. And accordingly, after perhaps a 
few months of frequent intercourse, with the addition 
of two or three books, and the ready aid of all the 
recollected vices of pretended christians, and pretended 
christian churches, the whole venerable magnificence 
of revelation was annihilated. Its illuminations re- 
specting the Divinity, its miracles, its Messiah, its 
authority of moral legislation, its regions of immor- 
tality and retribution, the sublime virtues and devotion 
of its prophets, apostles, and martyrs, together with 
the reasonings of so many accomplished advocates, and 
the credibility of history itself, were vanished all away ; 
while the convert, exulting in his disenchantment, felt a 
strange pleasure to behold nothing but a dreary train 
of impostures and credulity stretching over those past 
ages which lately appeared a scene of divine govern- 
ment ; and the thickest Egyptian shades fallen on that 
total vast futurity toward which the spirit of inspiration 
had thrown some grand though partial gleams. 

Nothing tempts the mind so powerfully on, as to 
have successfully begun to demolish what has been 
long regarded as most sacred. The soldiers of Caesar 
probably had never felt themselves so brave, as after 
they had cut down the Massilian grove ; nor the Phi- 
listines, as when the ark of the God of Israel was 
among their spoils : the mind is proud of its triumphs 
in proportion to the reputed greatness of what it has 
overcome. And many examples would seem to in- 
dicate, that the first proud triumphs over religious 
faith, involve some fatality of advancing, however 
formidable the mass of arguments which may obstruct 
the progress, to further victories. But perhaps the 
intellectual difficulty of the progress might be less than 
a zealous believer would be apt to imagine. As the 



40 ON a man's writing 

ideas which give the greatest distinctness to our con- 
ception of a Divine Being are imparted by revelation, 
and rest on its authority, the rejection of that reve- 
lation would in a great measure banish those ideas, and 
destroy that distinctness. We have but to advert to 
pure heathenism, to perceive what a faint conception of 
this Being could be formed by the strongest intellect in 
the absence of revelation ; and after the rejection of it, 
the mind would naturally be carried very far back 
toward that darkness ; so that some of the attributes of 
the Deity would immediately become, as they were 
with the heathens, subjects of doubtful conjecture and 
hopeless speculation. But from this state of thought 
it is perhaps no vast transition to that, in which his 
being also shall begin to appear a subject of doubt; 
since the reality of a being is with difficulty appre- 
hended, in proportion as its attributes are undefinable. 
And when the mind is brought into doubt, we know it 
easily advances to disbelief, if to the smallest plausi- 
bility of arguments be added any powerful moral cause 
for wishing such a conclusion. In the present case, 
there might be a very powerful cause, besides that 
pride of victory which I have just noticed. The 
progress in guilt, which generally follows a rejection of 
revelation, makes it sti«ll more and more desirable that 
no object should remain to be feared. It was not 
strange, therefore, if this man read with avidity, or 
even strange if he read with something which his 
wishes completed into conviction, a few of the writers, 
who have attempted the last achievement of pre- 
sumptuous man. After inspecting these pages awhile, 
he raised his eyes, and the Great Spirit was gone. 
Mighty transformation of all things ! The luminaries 
of heaven no longer shone with his splendour; the 
adorned earth no longer looked fair with his beauty ; 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 4-1 

the darkness of night had ceased to be rendered solemn 
by his majesty ; life and thought were not an effect of 
his all-pervading energy ; it was not his providence 
that supported an infinite charge of dependent beings ; 
his empire of justice no longer spread over the universe ; 
nor had even that universe sprung from his all-creating 
power. Yet when you saw the intellectual course 
brought to this signal conclusion, though aware of the 
force of each preceding and predisposing circumstance, 
you might nevertheless be somewhat struck with the 
suddenness of the final decision, and might be curious 
to know what kind of argument and eloquence could 
so quickly finish the work. You would examine those 
pages with the expectation probably of something more 
powerful than subtlety attenuated into inanity, and., in 
that invisible and impalpable state, mistaken by the 
writer, and willingly admitted by the perverted reader, 
for profundity of reasoning ; than attempts to destroy 
the certainty, or preclude the application, of some of 
those great familiar principles which must be taken as 
the basis of human reasoning, or it can have no basis ; 
than suppositions which attribute the order of the 
universe to such causes as it would be felt ridiculous 
to pronounce adequate to produce the most trifling 
piece of mechanism ; than mystical jargon which, 
under the name of nature, alternately exalts almost 
into the properties of a god, and reduces far below 
those of a man, some imaginary and undefinable agent 
or agency, which performs the most amazing works 
without power, and displays the most amazing wisdom 
without intelligence ; than a zealous preference of that 
part of every great dilemma which merely confounds 
and sinks the mind to that which elevates while it 
overwhelms it ; than a constant endeavour to degrade 
as far as possible every thing that is sublime in our 



4:2 on a man's writing 

speculations and feelings ; or than monstrous parallels 
between religion and mythology, You would be still 
more unprepared to expect on so solemn a subject the 
occasional wit, or affectation of wit, which would seem 
rather prematurely expressive of exultation that the 
grand Foe is retiring. 

A feeling of complete certainty would hardly be 
thus rapidly attained ; but a slight degree of remaining 
doubt, and of consequent apprehension, would not 
prevent this disciple of darkness from accepting the 
invitation to pledge himself to the cause in some asso- 
ciated band, where profaneness and vice would conso- 
lidate impious opinions without the aid of augmented 
conviction ; and where the fraternity, having been 
elated by the spirit of social daring to say, What is the 
Almighty that we should serve him ? the individuals 
might acquire each a firmer boldness to exclaim, Who 
is the Lord that / should obey his voice ? Thus easy 
it is, my friend, for a man to meet that train of influ- 
ences which may seduce him to live an infidel, though 
it may betray him to die a terrified believer ; of which 
the infatuation, while it promises him the impunity of 
non-existence, and degrades him to desire it, impels 
him to fill the measure of his iniquity, till the divine 
wrath come upon him to the uttermost. 



LETTER VI. 

In recounting so many influences that operate on 
man, it is grievous to observe that the incomparably 
noblest of all, religion, is counteracted with a fatal 
success by a perpetual conspiracy of almost all the rest, 
aided by the intrinsic predisposition of this our per- 



MEMOIRS OF KixMSELF 43 

verted nature, which yields itself with such consenting 
facility, to every impression tending to estrange it still 
further from God. 

It is a cause for wonder and sorrow, to see millions 
of rational creatures growing into their permanent 
habits, under the conforming efficacy of every thing 
which it were good for them to resist, and receiving no 
part of those habits from impressions of the Supreme 
Object. They are content that a narrow scene of a 
diminutive world, with its atoms and evils, should usurp 
and deprave and finish their education for endless 
existence, while the Infinite Spirit is here, whose sacred 
energy, received on their minds, might create the most 
excellent condition of their nature, and, in defiance of 
a thousand malignant forces attempting to stamp on 
them an opposite image, convey them into eternity in 
his likeness. Oh, why is it so possible that this greatest 
inhabitant of every place where men are living, should 
be the last to whose society they are attracted, or of 
whose continual presence they feel the importance ? 
Why is it possible to be surrounded with the intelligent 
Reality, which exists wherever we are, with attributes 
that are infinite, and not feel respecting all other things 
which may be attempting to press on our minds and 
affect their character, as if they retained with difficulty 
their shadows of existence, and were continuallv on 
the point of vanishing into nothing? Why is this 
stupendous Power so unperceived and silent, while 
present, over all the scenes of the earth, and in all the 
paths and abodes of men? Why does he keep his 
glory veiled behind the shades and visions of the 
material world ? Why does not this latent glory some- 
times beam forth with such a manifestation as could 
never be forgotten, nor could ever be remembered 
without an emotion of religious awe ? And why, in 



44 on a man's writing 

contempt of all that he has displayed to excite either 
fear or love, is it still possible for a rational creature so 
to live, that it must finally come to an interview with 
aim in a character completed by the full assemblage of 
those acquisitions, which have separately been disap- 
proved by him through every stage of the accumu- 
lation ? Why is it possible for feeble creatures to 
maintain their little dependent beings fortified and 
invincible in sin, amidst the presence of essential 
parity ? Why does not the apprehension of such a 
Being strike through the mind with such intense anti- 
pathy to evil, as to blast with death every active prin- 
ciple that is beginning to pervert it, and render gradual 
additions of depravity, growing into the solidity of 
habit, as impossible as for perishable materials to be 
raised. into structures amidst the fires of the last day? 
How is it possible to escape the solicitude, which 
should be inseparable from the knowledge that the 
beams of all-searching intelligence are continually 
darting on us, and pervading us ; that we are exposed 
to the piercing inspection, compared to which the 
concentrated attention of all the beings in the universe 
besides, would be but as the powerless gaze of an 
infant ? Why is faith, that faculty of spiritual appre- 
hension, so absent, or so incomparably less perceptive 
of the grandest of its objects, than the senses are of 
theirs ? While there is a Spirit in infinite energy 
through the universe, why have the few particles of 
dust which enclose our spirits the power to intercept 
all sensible communication with him, and to place them 
as in a vacuity, where the sovereign Essence had been 
precluded or extinguished ? 

The reverential submission, with which you con- 
template the mystery of omnipotent benevolence for- 
bearing to exert the agency, which could assume an 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 45 

instantaneous ascendancy in every mind over the causes 
of depravation and ruin, will not avert your compassion 
from the unhappy persons who are practically "without 
God in the world." And if your intellect could be 
enlarged to a capacity for comprehending the whole 
measure and depth of disaster contained in this ex- 
clusion, (an exclusion under which a human being 
having the full and fearful truth of his situation revealed 
to him would behold, as relatively to his happiness, the 
whole resources of the creation sunk as into dust and 
ashes, and all the causes of joy and hope reduced to 
insipidity and lost in despair,) you would feel a dis- 
tressing emotion at each recital of a life in which 
religion had no share ; and you would be tempted to 
wish that some spirit from the other world, empowered 
with an eloquence that might threaten to alarm the 
slumbers of the dead, would throw himself in the wav 
of this one mortal, and this one more, to protest, in 
sentences of lightning and thunder, against the in- 
fatuation that can at once acknowledge there is a God, 
and be content to forego every connexion with him, but 
that of danger. You would wish they should rather 
be assailed by the " terror of the Lord," in whatever 
were its most appalling form, than retain the satisfaction 
of carelessness till the day of his mercy be past. 

But you will need no such enlargement of compre- 
hension, in order to compassionate the situation of 
persons who, with reason sound to think, and hearts 
not strangers to feeling, have advanced far into life, 
perhaps near to its close, without having felt the in- 
fluence of religion. If there is such a Being as we 
mean by the term God, the ordinary intelligence of a 
serious mind will be quite enough to see that it must 
be a melancholy thing to pass through life, and quit it, 
just as if there were not. And sometimes it will appear 



4-6 on a man's writing 

as strange as it is melancholy ; especially to a person who 
has been pious from his youth. He would be inclined 
to say, to a person who has nearly finished an irreligious 
life, What would have been justly thought of you, if 
you could have been habitually in the society of the 
wisest and best men on earth, and have acquired no 
degree of conformity ; much more, if you could all the 
while have acquired progressively the meanness, pre- 
judices, follies, and vices, of the lowest society, with 
which you might have been at intervals thrown in 
unavoidable contact? You might have been asked 
how that was possible. But then through what fatality 
have you been able, during so many years spent in the 
presence of a God, to continue even to this hour as 
clear of all signs of assimilation or impression as if the 
Deity were but a poetical fiction, or an idol in some 
temple of Asia ? — Evidently, as the immediate cause, 
through want of thought concerning him. 

And why did you not think of him ? Did a most 
solemn thought of him never once penetrate your soul, 
while admitting it true that there is such a Being ? If 
it never did, what is reason, what is mind, what is man? 
If it did once, how could its effects stop there ? How 
could a deep thought on so transcendent a subject, fail 
to impose on the mind a permanent necessity of fre- 
quently recalling it ; as some awful or magnificent 
spectacle would haunt you with a long recurrence of 
its image, even were the spectacle itself seen no more? 

Why did you not think of him ? How could you 
estimate so meanly your mind with all its capacities, as 
to feel no regret that an endless series of trifles should 
seize, and occupy as their right, all your thoughts, and 
deny them both the liberty and the ambition of going 
on to the greatest Object ? How, while called to the 
contemplations which absorb the spirits of Heaven, 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 47 

could you be so patient of the task of counting the 
flies of a summer's day ? 

Why did you not think of him ? You knew yourself 
to be in the hands of some Being from whose power 
you could not be withdrawn ; was it not an equal defect 
of curiosity and prudence to indulge a careless con- 
fidence that sought no acquaintance with his nature, 
as regarded in itself and in its aspect on his creatures ; 
nor ever anxiously inquired what conduct should be 
observed toward him, and what expectations might be 
entertained from him ? You would have been alarmed 
to have felt yourself in the power of a mysterious 
stranger, of your own feeble species ; but let the 
stranger be omnipotent, and you cared no more. 

Why did you not think of him ? One would deem 
that the thought of him must, to a serious mind, come 
second to almost every thought. The thought of virtue 
would suggest the thought of both a lawgiver and a 
rewarder ; the thought of crime, of an avenger ; the 
thought of sorrow, of a consoler ; the thought of an 
inscrutable mystery, of an intelligence that understands 
it ; the thought of that ever-moving activity which 
prevails in the system of the universe, of a supreme 
agent; the thought of the human family, of a great 
father ; the thought of all being not necessary and 
self- existent, of a creator ; the thought of life, of a pre- 
server ; and the thought of death, of an uncontrollable 
disposer. By what dexterity, therefore, of irreligious 
caution, did you avoid precisely every track where the 
idea of him would have met you, or elude that idea 
if it came ? And what must sound reason pronounce 
of a mind which, in the train of millions of thoughts, 
has wandered to all things under the sun, to all the per- 
manent objects or vanishing appearances in the creation, 
but never fixed its thought on the Supreme Reality ; 



4-8 on a man's writing 

never approached, like Moses, " to see this great 
sight ?" 

If it were a thing which we might be allowed to 
imagine, that the Divine Being were to manifest himself 
in some striking manner to the senses f as by some re- 
splendent appearance at the midnight hour, or by 
rekindling on an elevated mountain the long extin- 
guished fires of Sinai, and uttering voices from those 
fires ; would he not compel from you an attention 
which you now refuse ? Yes, you will say, he would 
then seize the mind with irresistible force, and religion 
would become its most absolute sentiment ; but he only 
presents himself to faith. Weil, and is it a worthy 
reason for disregarding him, that you only believe him 
to be present and infinitely glorious ? Is it the office 
of faith to veil, to frustrate, to annihilate in effect, its 
object ? Cannot you reflect, that the grandest repre- 
sentation of a spiritual and divine Being to the senses 
would bear not only no proportion to his glory, but no 
relation to his nature ; and could be adapted only to 
an inferior dispensation of religion, and to a people 
who, with the exception of a most extremely small 
number of men, had been totally untaught to carry their 
thoughts beyond the objects of sense ? Are you not 
aware, that such a representation would considerably 
tend to restrict you in your contemplation to a defined 
image, and therefore a most inadequate and subordi- 
nate idea of the divine Being ? while the idea admitted 
by faith, though less immediately striking, is capable of 
an illimitable expansion, by the addition of all that pro- 
gressive thought can accumulate* under the continual 
certainty that all is still infinitely short of the reality. 

On the review of a character thus grown, in the 
exclusion of the religious influences, to the nature and 
perhaps ultimate state, the sentiment of pious bene- 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 49 

volence would be, — I regard you as an object of great 
compassion, unless there can be no felicity in friendship 
with the Almighty, unless there be no glory in being 
assimilated to his excellence, unless there be no 
eternal rewards for his devoted servants, unless there 
be no danger in meeting him, at length, after a life 
estranged equally from his love and his fear. I deplore, 
at every period and crisis in the review of your life, 
that religion was not there. If that had been there, 
your youthful animation would neither have been dis- 
sipated in the frivolity which, in the morning of the 
short day of life, fairly and formally sets aside all 
serious business for that day, nor would have sprung 
forward into the emulation of vice, or the bravery of 
profaneness. If religion had been there, that one 
despicable companion, and that other malignant one, 
would not have seduced you into their society, or would 
not have retained you to share their degradation. And 
if religion had accompanied the subsequent progress of 
your life, it would have elevated you to rank, at this 
hour, with those saints who will soon be added to " the 
spirits of the just." Instead of which, what are you 
now, and what are your expectations as looking to that 
world, where piety alone can hope to find such a sequel 
of existence, as will inspire exultation in the retrospect 
of this introductory life, in which the spirit took its 
impress for eternity from communication with God ? 

On the other hand, it would be interesting to record, 
or to hear, the history of a character which has received 
its form, and reached its maturity, under the strongest 
efficacy of religion. We do not know that there is a 
more beneficent or a more direct mode of the divine 
agency in any part of the creation than that which 
" apprehends " a man, (as apostolic language expresses 
it,) amidst the unthinking crowd, constrains him to 

E 



50 ON a man's writing 

serious reflection, subdues him under persuasive con- 
viction, elevates him to devotion, and matures him in 
progressive virtue, in order to his passing finally to a 
nobler state of existence. When he has long been 
commanded by this influence, he will be happy to look 
back to its first operations, whether they were mingled 
in early life almost insensibly with his feelings, or came 
on him with mighty force at some particular time, and 
in connexion with some assignable and memorable cir- 
cumstance which was apparently the instrumental cause. 
He will trace the progress of this his better life, with 
grateful acknowledgment to the sacred power that has 
wrought him to a confirmation of religious habit which 
puts the final seal on his character. In the great 
majority of things, habit is a greater plague than ever 
afflicted Egypt : in religious character, it is eminently 
a felicity. The devout man exults to feel that in aid 
of the simple force of the divine principles within him, 
there has grown by time an accessional power, which 
has almost taken place of his will, and holds a firm 
though quiet domination through the general action of 
his mind. He feels this confirmed habit as the grasp 
of the hand of God, which will never let him go. 
From this advanced state he looks with confidence on 
futurity, and says, I carry the indelible mark upon me 
that I belong to God ; by being devoted to him I am 
free of the universe ; and I am ready to go to any 
world to which he shall please to transmit me, certain 
that every where, in height or depth, he will acknow- 
ledge me for ever. 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 51 



LETTER VII. 

The preceding letters have attempted to exhibit oniy 
general views of the influences, by which a reflective 
man may perceive the moral condition of his mind to 
have been determined. 

In descending into more particular illustrations, there 
would have been no end of enumerating the local cir- 
cumstances, the relationships of life, the professions 
and employments, and the accidental events, which 
may have affected the character. A person who feels 
any interest, in reviewing what has formed thus far his 
education for futurity, may carry his own examination 
into the most distinct particularity. — A few miscel- 
laneous observations will conclude the essay. 

You will have observed that I have said comparatively 
little of that which forms the exterior, and in general 
account the main substance, of the history of a man's life 
— the train of his fortunes and actions. If an adventurer 
or a soldier writes memoirs of himself for the infor- 
mation or amusement of the public, he may do well to 
keep his narrative alive by a constant crowded course 
of facts ; for the greater part of his readers will excuse 
him the trouble of investigating, and he might occa- 
sionally feel it a convenience to be excused from dis- 
closing, if he had investigated, the history and merits 
of his internal principles. Nor can this ingenuousness 
be any part of his duty, any more than it is that of an 
exhibiter in a public show, as long as he tells all that 
probably he professes to tell — where he has been, what 
he has witnessed, and the more reputable portion of 
what he has done. Let him go on with his lively 
anecdotes, or his legends of the marvellous, or his 

£2 



52 on a man's writing 

gazettes of marches, stratagems and skirmishes, and 
there is no obligation for him to turn either penitent 
or philosopher on our hands. — But I am supposing a 
man to retrace himself through his past life, in order 
to acquire a deep self-knowledge, and to record the 
investigation for his own instruction, Through such 
a retrospective examination, the exterior life will hold 
but the second place in attention, as being the im- 
perfect offspring of that internal state, which it is the 
primary and more difficult object to review. From an 
effectual inquisition into this inner man, the investigator 
may proceed outward, to the course of his actions ; of 
which he will thus have become qualified to form a 
much juster estimate, than he could by any exercise of 
judgment upon them regarded merely as exterior facts. 
No doubt that sometimes also, in a contrary process, 
the judgment will be directed upon the dispositions 
and principles within by a consideration of the actions 
without, which will serve as a partial explication of 
the interior character. Still it is that interior cha- 
racter, whether displayed in actions or not, which 
forms the leading object of inquiry. The chief cir- 
cumstances of his practical life will, however, require 
to be noted, both for the purpose of so much illus- 
tration as they will afford of the state of his mind, 
and because they mark the points, and distinguish the 
stages, of his progress. 

Though in memoirs intended for publication, a 
large share of incident and action would generally be 
necessary, yet there are some men whose mental historv 
alone might be very interesting to reflective readers ; 
as, for instance, that of a thinking man, remarkable 
for a number of complete changes of his speculative 
system. From observing the usual tenacity of views 
once deliberately adopted in mature life, we regard as 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 53 

a curious phenomenon the man whose mind has been 
a kind of caravansera of opinions, entertained awhile, 
and then sent on pilgrimage ; a man who has admired 
and dismissed systems with the same facility with 
which John B uncle found, adored, married, and in- 
terred, his succession of wives, each one being, for the 
time, not only better than all that went before, but the 
best in the world. You admire the versatile aptitude 
of a mind, sliding into successive forms of belief, in 
this intellectual metempsychosis by which it animates 
so many new bodies of doctrines in their turn. And 
as none of those dying pangs which hurt you in a tale 
of India, attend the desertion of each of these specu- 
lative forms which the soul has awhile inhabited, you 
are extremely amused by the number of transmigrations, 
and curious to see what is to be the next ; for you never 
reckon on the present state of such a man's views, as 
to be for permanence, unless perhaps when he has 
terminated his course of believing every thing, in ulti- 
mately believing nothing. Even then, unless he be 
very old, or feel more pride in being a sceptic, the 
conqueror of all systems, than he ever felt in being the 
champion of one, even then, it is very possible he may 
spring up again, like an igneous vapour from a bog, 
and glimmer through new mazes, or retrace his course 
through half of those he went errant through before. 
You will observe, that no respect is attached to this 
Proteus of opinion, after his changes have been mul- 
tiplied ; as no party expect him to remain with them, 
or account him much of an acquisition if he should. 
One, or perhaps two, considerable changes, will be 
regarded as signs of a liberal inquirer, and therefore 
the party to which his first or his second intellectual 
conversion may assign him, will receive him gladly. 
But he will be deemed to have abdicated the dignity of 



54 ON a man's whiting 

reason, "when it is found that he can adopt no principles 
but to betray them ; and it will be perhaps justly 
suspected that there is something extremely infirm in 
the structure of that mind, whatever vigour may maik 
some of its operations, to which a series of very dif- 
ferent and sometimes contrasted theories, can appear 
in succession demonstratively tn-e, and which imitates 
sincerely the perverseness which Petruchio only affected, 
declaring that which was yesterday, to a certainty, the 
sun, to be to-day, as certainly, the moon. 

It would be curious to observe in a man who should 
make such an exhibition of the course of his mind, the 
sly deceit of self-love. While he despises the system 
which he has rejected, it must not imply so great a 
want of sense in him once to have embraced it, as in 
the rest, who were then or are now its adherents and 
advocates. No, in him it was no debility of intellect, 
it was at most but its immaturity or temporary lapse ; 
and probably he is prepared to explain to you that 
such peculiar circumstances, as might warp a very 
strong and liberal mind, attended his consideration of 
the subject, and misled him to admit the belief of what 
others prove themselves fools by believing. 

Another thing apparent in a record of changed 
opinions would be, what I have noticed before, that 
there is scarcely any such thing in the world as simple 
conviction. It would be amusing to observe how the 
judgment had, in one instance, been overruled into 
acquiescence by the admiration of a celebrated name, 
or in another, into opposition by the envy of it ; how 
most opportunely judgment discovered the truth just 
at the time that interest could be essentially served by 
avowing it ; how easily the impartial examiner could 
be induced to adopt some part of another man's 
opinions, after that other had zealously approved some 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 55 

favourite, especially if unpopular part of his ; as the 
Pharisees almost became partial even to Christ, at the 
moment that he defended one of their doctrines against 
the Sadducees. It would be curious to see how a 
respectful estimate of a man's character and talents 
might be changed, in consequence of some personal 
inattention experienced from him, into depreciating 
invective against him or his intellectual performances, 
and yet the railer, though actuated solely by petty 
revenge, account himself, all the while, the model of 
equity and sound judgment* It might be seen how 
the patronage of power could elevate miserable pre- 
judices into revered wisdom, while poor old Experience 
was mocked with thanks for her instruction ; and how 
the vicinity and society of the rich, and as they are 
termed, great, could perhaps transmute a mind that 
seemed to be of the stern consistence of the early 
Roman republic, into the gentlest wax on which Cor- 
ruption could wish to imprint the venerable creed, 
" The right divine of kings to govern wrong," with the 
pious and loyal inference of the flagrant iniquity of 
expelling Tarquin. I am supposing the observer to 
perceive all these accommodating dexterities of reason ; 
for it were probably absurd to expect that any mind 
should itself be able, in its review, to detect all its own 
obliquities, after having been so long beguiled, like the 
mariners in a story which I remember to have read? 
who followed the direction of their compass, infallibly 
right as they could have no doubt, till they arrived at 
an enemy's port, where they were seized and made 
slaves. It happened that the wicked captain, in order 
to betray the ship, had concealed a large loadstone at 
a little distance on one side of the needle. 

On the notions and expectations of one stage of life, 
I remember several remarkable instances of this*. 



56 on a man's writing 

I suppose most reflecting men look back with a kind 
of compassionate contempt, though it may be often 
with a mingling wish that some of its enthusiasm of 
feeling could be recovered, I mean the period between 
childhood and maturity. They are prompted to exclaim, 
What fools we have been — while they recollect how 
sincerely they entertained and advanced the most ridi- 
culous speculations on the interests of life, and the 
questions of truth; how regretfully astonished they 
were to find the mature sense of some of those around 
them so completely wrong; yet in other instances what 
veneration they felt for authorities for which they have 
since lost all their respect; what a fantastic importance 
they attached to some most trivial things ; * what 
complaints* against their fate were uttered on account 
of disappointments which they have since recollected 
with gaiety or self- congratulation ; what happiness of 
Elysium they expected from sources which would soon 
have failed to impart even common satisfaction ; and 
how sure they were that the feelings and opinions then 
predominant would continue through life. 

If a reflective aged man were to find at the bottom 
of an old chest, where it had lain forgotten fifty years, 
a record which he had written of himself when he was 
young, simply and vividly describing his whole heart 
and pursuits, and reciting verbatim many recent pas- 
sages of the language sincerely uttered to his favourite 
companions ; would he not read it with more wonder 
than almost any other writing could at his age excite ? 
His consciousness would be strangely confused in the 
attempt to verify his identity with such a being. He 

* I recollect a youth of some acquirements, who earnestly wished 
the time might one day arrive, when his name should be adorned 
with the addition of D.D., which he deemed one of thesublimest of 
Iranian distinctions. 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 51 

would feel the young man, thus introduced to him, 
separated by so wide a distance as to render all con- 
genial communion impossible. At every sentence, he 
might repeat, Foolish youth! I have no sympathy with 
your feelings, I can hold no converse with your un- 
derstanding. Thus you see that in the course of a 
long life a man may be several moral persons, so dis- 
similar, that if you could find a real individual that 
should nearly exemplify the character in one of these 
stages, and another that should exemplify it in the next, 
and so on to the last, and then bring these several 
persons together into one company, which would thus 
be a representation of the successive states of one man, 
they would feel themselves a most heterogeneous party, 
would oppose and probably despise one another, and 
soon separate, not caring if they were never to meet 
again. The dissimilarity in mind between the two 
extremes, the youth of seventeen and the sage of 
seventy, might perhaps be little less than that in coun- 
tenance ; and as the one of these contrasts might be 
contemplated by an old man, if he had a true portrait 
for which he sat in the bloom of life, and should hold 
it beside a mirror in which he looks at his present 
countenance, the other would be powerfully felt if he 
had such a genuine and detailed memoir as I have 
supposed. Might it not be worth while for a self- 
observant person in early life, to preserve, for the 
inspection of the old man, if he should live so long, 
such a mental likeness of the young one? If it be 
not drawn near the time, it can never be drawn with 
sufficient accuracy.* 

* It is to be acknowledged that the above representation of the 
changes and the contrast is given in the strongest colouring it will 
admit. Many men, perhaps the majority, retain through life so 
much of the chief characteristic quality of the dispositions developed 



58 on a man's writing 

If this sketch of life were not written till -a very 
mature or an advanced period of it, a somewhat in- 
teresting point would be, to distinguish the periods 
during which the mind made its greatest progress in 
the enlargement of its faculties, and the time when 
they appear to have reached their insuperable limits. 

And if there have been vernal seasons, (if I may so 
express it,) of goodness also, periods separated off from 
the latter course of life by some point of time sub- 
sequent to which the christian virtues have had a less 
generous growth, this is a circumstance still more 
worthy to be strongly marked. No doubt it will be 
with a reluctant hand that a man marks either of these 
circumstances ; for he could not reflect, without regret, 
that many children have grown into maturity and great 
talent, and many unformed or defective characters into 
established excellence, since the period when he ceased 
to become abler or better. Pope, at the age of fifty, 
would have been incomparably more mortified than, as 
Johnson says, his readers are, at the fact, if he had 
perceived it, that he could not then write materially 
better than he had written at the age of twenty.— And 
the consciousness of having passed many years without 
any moral and religious progress, ought to be not merely 
the regret for an infelicity, but the remorse of guilt ; 
since, though natural causes must somewhere have cir- 
cumscribed and fixed the extent of the intellectual power, 
an advancement in the nobler distinctions has still con- 
tinued to be possible, and will be possible till the evening 
of rational life. The instruction resulting from a clear 

or acquired in youth, and of the order of notions then taken in, that 
they remain radically of the same character, notwithstanding very 
great modifications effected by time and events : so that, in a general 
account of men, the mental difference between the two extremes of 
life may be less than the physical* 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 59 

estimate of what has been effected or not in this capital 
concern, is the chief advantage to be derived from 
recording the stages of life, comparing one part with 
another, and bringing the whole into a comparison 
with the standard of perfection, and the illustrious 
human examples which have approached that standard 
the nearest. In forming this estimate, we shall keep 
in view the vast series of advantages and monitions, 
which has run parallel to the train of years; and it 
will be inevitable to recollect, with severe mortification, 
the sanguine calculations of improvement of the best 
kind, which at various periods the mind delighted itself 
in making for other given future periods, should life 
be protracted till then, and promised itself most cer- 
tainly to realize by the time of their arrival. The 
mortification will be still more grievous, if there was 
at those past seasons something more hopeful than mere 
confident presumptions, if there were actual favour- 
able omens, which partly justified while they raised, in 
ourselves and others, anticipations that have mournfully 
failed. My dear friend, it is very melancholy that evil 
must be so palpable, so hatefully conspicuous to an en- 
lightened conscience, in every retrospect of a human life. 

If the supposed memoirs be to be carried forward as 
life advances, each period being recorded as soon as it 
has elapsed, they should not be composed by small 
daily or weekly accumulations, (though this practice 
may have its use, in keeping a man observant of 
himself,) but at certain considerable intervals, as at 
the end of each year, or any other measure of time 
that is ample enough for some definable alteration to 
have taken place in the character or attainments. 

It is needless to say that the style should be as simple 
as possible — unless indeed the writer accounts the theme 
worthy of being bedecked with brilliants and flowers. 



60 ON A MAN'S WRITING 

If he idolize his own image so much as to think it 
deserves to be enshrined in a frame or cabinet of gold, 
why, let him enshrine it. 

Should it be asked what degree of explicitness ought 
to prevail through this review, in reference to those 
particulars on which conscience has fixed the most 
condemning mark; I answer, that if a man writes it 
exclusively for his own use, he ought to signify the 
quality and measure of the delinquency, so far ex- 
plicitly, as to secure to his mind a defined recollection 
of the verdict pronounced by conscience before its 
emotions were quelled by time ; and so far as, in 
default of an adequate sentence then, to constrain him 
to pronounce it now. Such honest distinctness is 
necessary, because this will be the most useful part of 
his record for reflection to dwell upon ; because this is 
the part which self-love is most willing to diminish and 
memory to dismiss ; because mere general terms or 
allusions of censure will but little aid the cultivation of 
his humility ; and because this license of saying so 
much about himself in the character of a biographer 
may become only a temptation to the indulgence of 
vanity, and a protection from the shame of it, unless he 
can maintain the feeling in earnest that it is really at a 
confessional, a severe one, that he is giving his account. 

But perhaps he wishes to hold this record open to 
an intimate relation or friend ; perhaps even thinks it 
might supply some interest and some lessons to his 
children. And what then ? Why then it is perhaps 
too probable that though he could readily confess some 
of his faults, there may have been certain states of his 
mind, and certain circumstances in his conduct, which 
he cannot persuade himself to present to such inspection. 
Such a difficulty of being quite ingenuous, when it is 
actually guilt, and not merely some propriety of dis- 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 61 

cretion or good taste, that creates it, is in every instance 
a cause for deep regret. Should not a man tremble to 
feel himself not daring to confide to an equal and a 
mortal, what has been all observed by the Supreme 
Witness and Judge ? And the consideration of the 
large proportion of men constituting such instances, 
throws a melancholy hue over the general human cha- 
racter. It has several times, in writing this essay, 
occurred to me what strangers men may be to one 
another, whether as to the influences which have deter- 
mined their characters, or as to the less obvious parts 
of their conduct. What strangers too we may be, with 
persons who have the art of concealment, to the prin- 
ciples which are at this moment prevailing in the heart. 
Each mind has an interior apartment of its own, into 
which none but itself and the Divinity can enter. In 
this secluded place the passions mingle and fluctuate in 
unknown agitations. Here all the fantastic and all the 
tragic shapes of imagination have a haunt, where they 
can neither be invaded nor descried. Here the sur- 
rounding human beings, while quite insensible of it, 
are made the subjects of deliberate thought, and many 
of the designs respecting them revolved in silence. Here 
projects, convictions, vows, are confusedly scattered, 
and the records of past life are laid. Here in solitary 
state sits Conscience, surrounded by her own thunders, 
which sometimes sleep, and sometimes roar, while the 
world does not know. The secrets of this apartment, 
could they have been even but very partially brought 
forth, might have been fatal to that eulogy and splen- 
dour with which many a piece of biography has "been 
exhibited by a partial and ignorant friend. If, in a 
man's own account of himself, written on the suppo- 
sition of being seen by any other person, the substance 
of the secrets of this apartment be brought forth, he 



62 ON A man's writing 

throws open the last asylum of his character, where it 
is well if there be nothing found that will distress and 
irritate his most partial friend, who may thus become 
the ally of his conscience to condemn, without the 
leniency which even conscience acquires from self-love. 
And if it be not brought forth, where is the integrity 
or value of the history, supposing it pretend to afford 
a full and faithful estimate ; and what ingenuous man 
could bear to give a delusive assurance of his being, 
or having been, so much more worthy of applause or 
affection than conscience all the while pronounces ? It 
is obvious then that a man whose sentiments and designs, 
or the undisclosed parts of whose conduct, have been 
deeply criminal, must keep his record sacred to himself; 
unless he feels such an unsupportable longing to relieve 
his heart by confiding its painful consciousness, that he 
can be content to hold the regard of his friend on the 
strength of his penitence and recovered virtue. As to 
those, whose memory of the past is sullied by shades if 
not by stains, they must either in the same manner 
retain the delineation for solitary use, or limit them- 
selves in writing it, to a deliberate and strong expression 
of the measure of conscious culpabilities, and their effect 
in the general character, with a certain, not deceptive 
but partially reserved explanation, that shall equally 
avoid particularity and mystery ; or else they must 
consent to meet their friends, who share the human 
frailty and have had their deviations, on terms of 
mutual ingenuous acknowledgment. In this confi- 
dential communication, each will learn to behold the 
other's transgressions fully as much in that light in 
which they certainly are infelicities to be commiserated, 
as in that in which they are also faults or vices to be 
condemned ; while both earnestly endeavour to improve 
by their remembered errors. 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 63 

But I shall find myself in danger of becoming ridi- 
culous, amidst these scruples about an entire inge- 
nuousness to a confidential friend or two, while I glance 
into the literary world, and observe the number of 
historians of their own lives, who magnanimously throw 
the complete cargo, both of their vanities and their 
vices, before the whole public. Men who can gaily 
laugh at themselves for ever having even pretended to 
goodness ; who can tell of having sought consolation 
for the sorrows of bereaved tenderness, in the recesses 
of debauchery; whose language betrays that they deem 
a spirited course of profligate adventures a much finer 
thing than the stupidity of vulgar virtues, and who 
seem to claim the sentiments with which we regard an 
unfortunate hero, for the disasters into which these 
adventures led them ; venal partisans whose talents 
would hardly have been bought, if their venom had not 
made up the deficiency ; profane travelling coxcombs ; 
players, and the makers of immoral plays — all can 
narrate the course of a contaminated life with the most 
ingenuous hardihood. Even courtezans, grieved at the 
excess of modesty with which the age is afflicted, have 
endeavoured to diminish the evil, by presenting them- 
selves before the public in their narratives, in a manner 
very analogous to that in which the Lady Godiva is said 
to have consented, from a most generous inducement, 
to pass through the city of Coventry. They can 
gravely relate, perhaps with intermingled paragraphs 
and verses of plaintive sensibility, (a kind of weeds in 
which sentiment without principle apes and mocks 
mourning virtue,) the whole nauseous detail of their 
transitions from proprietor to proprietor. They can 
tell of the precautions for meeting some " illustrious 
personage," accomplisned in depravity even in hb early 
youth, with the proper adjustment of time and circum- 
stances to save him the scandal of such a meeting ; the 



64* ON a man's writing 

hour when they crossed the river in a boat ; the 
arrangements about money; the kindness of the u per- 
sonage*' at one time, his contemptuous neglect at 
another ; and every thing else that can turn the com- 
passion with which we deplore their first misfortunes 
and errors, into detestation of the effrontery which can 
take to itself a merit in proclaiming the commencement 
sequel, and all, to the wide world. 

With regard to all the classes of self-describers who 
thus think the publication of their vices necessary to 
crown their fame, one should wish there were some 
public special mark and brand of emphatic reprobation, 
to reward this tribute to public morals. Men that 
court the pillory for the pleasure of it, ought to receive 
the honour of it too, in all those contumelious salu- 
tations which suit the merits of vice grown proud of 
its impudence. They who " glory in their shame " 
should, like other distinguished personages, " pay a tax 
for being eminent." Yet I own the public itself is to 
be consulted in this case ; for if the public welcomes 
such productions, it shows there are readers who feel 
themselves akin to the writers, and it would be hard to 
deprive congenial souls of the luxury of their appro- 
priate sympathies. If such is the taste, it proves that 
a considerable portion of the public deserves just that 
kind of respect for its virtue, which is very signifi- 
cantly implied in this confidence of its favour. 

One is indignant at the cant pretence and title of Con- 
fessions, sometimes adopted by these exhibiters of 
their own disgrace ; as if it were to be believed, that 
penitence and humiliation would ever excite men to 
call thousands to witness a needless disclosure of what 
oppresses them with grief and shame. If they wosld 
be mortified that only a few readers should think it 
worth while to see them thus performing the work of 
self-degradation, like the fetid heroes of the Dunciad 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 65 

in a ditch, would it be because they are desirous that 
the greatest possible number should have the benefit 
of being averted from vice through disgust and 
contempt of them as its example ? No, this title of 
Confessions is only a nominal deference to morality, 
necessary indeed to be paid, because mankind never for- 
get to insist, that the name of virtue shall be respected, 
even while vice obtains from them that practical 
favour on which these writers place their reliance for 
toleration or applause. This slight homage being duly 
rendered and occasionally repeated, they trust in the 
character of the community that they shall not meet 
the kind of condemnation, and they have no desire for 
the kind of pity, which would strictly belong to cri- 
minals : nor is it any part or effect of their penitence, 
to wish that society may be made better by seeing in 
them how odious are folly and vice. They are glad 
the age continues such, that even they may have claims 
to be praised; and honour of some kind, and from 
some quarter, is the object to which they aspire, and 
the consequence which they promise themselves. Let 
them once be convinced, that they make such exhi- 
bitions under the absolute condition of subjecting them- 
selves irredeemably to opprobrium, as in Miletus the 
persons infected with a rage for destroying themselves 
were by a solemn decree assured of being exposed in 
naked ignominy after the perpetration of the deed — and 
these literarv suicides will be heard of no more. 

Rousseau has given a memorable example of this 
voluntary humiliation. And he has very honestly 
assigned the degree of contrition which accompanied 
the self-inflicted penance, in the declaration that this 
document with all its dishonours, shall be presented in 
his justification before the Eternal Judge. If we could, 
in any case, pardon the kind of ingenuousness which 
he has displayed, it would certainly be in the disclosure 

F 



66 on a man's WRITING, &c 



of a mind so wonderfully singular as his.* We are 
almost willing to have such a being preserved to all 
the unsightly minutiae and anomalies of its form, to be 
placed, as an unique in the moral museum of the world. 
Rousseau's impious reference to the Divine Judge, 
leads me to suggest, as I conclude, the consideration, 
that the history of each man's life, though it should 
not be written by himself or by any mortal hand, is 
thus far unerringly recorded, will one day be finished 
in truth, and one other day yet to come, will be 
brought to a final estimate. A mind accustomed to 
grave reflections is sometimes led involuntarily into a 
curiosity of awful conjecture, which asks, What are 
those words which I should read this night, if, as to 
Belshazzar, a hand of prophetic shade were sent to 
write before me the identical expression, or the mo- 
mentous import, of the sentence in which that final 
estimate will be declared ? 

* There is indeed one case in which this kind of honesty would 
be so signally useful to mankind, that it would deserve almost to be 
canonized into a virtue. If statesmen, including monarchs, courtiers, 
ministers, senators, popular leaders, ambassadors, &c, would publish, 
before they go in the triumph of virtue, to the " last audit," or leave 
to be published after they are gone, each a frank exposition of 
motives, intrigues, cabals, and manoeuvres, the worship which man- 
kind have rendered to power and rank would cease to be, what 
it has always been, a mere blind superstition, when such rational 
grounds should come to be shown for the homage. It might 
contribute to a happy exorcism of that spirit which has never 
suffered nations to be at peace ; while it would give an altered and 
less delusive character to history. Great service in this way, but 
unfortunately late, is in the course of being rendered in our times, 
by the publication of private memoirs, written by persons connected 
or acquainted with those of the highest order. Let any one look at 
the exhibition of the very centre of the dignity and power of a great 
nation, as given in Pepys's Memoirs, though with the omission in 
ihat publication, as I am informed on the best authority, of sundry 
passages contained in the manuscript, of such a colour that their 
production would have exceeded the very utmost license allowable 
by public decorum. I need not revert to works now comparatively 
ancient, such as Lord ^leioourn s In&rv 



ESSAY II. 

ON DECISION OF CHARACTER 



LETTER I. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

We have several times talked of this bold quality, and 
acknowledged its great importance. Without it, a 
human being, with powers at best but feeble and 
surrounded by innumerable things tending to perplex, 
to divert, and to frustrate, their operations, is indeed a 
pitiable atom, the sport of divers and casual impulses. 
It is a poor and disgraceful thing, not to be able to 
reply, with some degree of certainty, to the simple 
questions, What will you be ? What will you do ? 

A little acquaintance with mankind will supply 
numberless illustrations of the importance of this 
qualification. You will often see a person anxiously 
hesitating a long time between different, or opposite 
determinaiions, though impatient of the pain of such 
a state, and ashamed of the debility. A faint impulse 
of preference alternates toward the one, and toward the 
other; and the mind, while thus held in a trembling 
balance, is vexed that it cannot get some new thought, 
or feeling, or motive ; that it has not more sense, more 
resolution, more of any thing that would save it from 
envying evon the decisive instinct of brutes. It wishes 

F 2 



65 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

that any circumstance might happen, or any person 
might appear, that could deliver it from the miserable- 
suspense. 

In many instances, when a determination is adopted, 
it is frustrated by this temperament, A man, for 
example, resolves on a journey to-morrow, which he is 
not under an absolute necessity to undertake, but the 
inducements appear, this evening, so strong, that he 
does not think it possible he can hesitate in the morning. 
In the morning, however, these inducements have 
unaccountably lost much of their force. Like the sun 
that is rising at the same time, they appear dim through 
a mist ; and the sky lowers, or he fancies that it does, 
and almost wishes to see darker clouds than there 
actually are ; recollections of toils and fatigues ill 
repaid in past expeditions rise and pass into antici- 
pation ; and he lingers, uncertain, till an advanced 
hour determines the question for him, by the certainty 
that it is now too late to go. 

Perhaps a man has conclusive reasons for wishing 
to remove to another place of residence. But when 
he is going to take the first actual step towards ex- 
ecuting his purpose, he is met by a new train of ideas, 
presenting the possible, and magnifying the unques- 
tionable, disadvantages and uncertainties of a new 
situation ; awakening the natural reluctance to quit a 
place to which habit has accommodated his feelings, and 
which has grown warm to him, (if I may so express it, ) 
by his having been in it so long ; giving a new impulse 
to his affection for the friends whom he must leave; 
and so detaining him still lingering, long after his 
judgment may have dictated to him to be gone. 

A man may think of some desirable alteration in his 
plan of life ; perhaps in the arrangements of his 
family, or in the mode of his intercourse with society, — 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 69 

Would it be a good thing ? He thinks it would be a good 
thing. It certainly would be a very good thing. Ho 
wishes it were done. He will attempt it almost imme- 
diately. The following day, he doubts whether it 
would be quite prudent. Many things are to be con- 
sidered. May there not be in the change some evil of 
which he is not aware ? Is this a proper time ? What 
will people say ? — And thus, though he does not 
formally renounce his purpose, he shrinks out of it, 
with an irksome wish that he could be fully satisfied of 
the propriety of renouncing it. Perhaps he wishes 
that the thought had never occurred to him, since it 
has diminished his self-complacency, without promoting 
his virtue. But next week, his conviction of the 
wisdom and advantage of such a reform comes again 
with great force. Then, Is it so practicable as 1 was 
at first willing to imagine ? Why not ? Other men 
have done much greater things ; a resolute mind may 
brave and accomplish every thing ; difficulty is a 
stimulus and a triumph to a strong spirit ; " the joys 
of conquest are the joys of man." What need I care 
for people's opinion ? It shall be done. — He makes 
the first attempt. But some unexpected obstacle 
presents itself; he feels the awkwardness of attempting 
an unaccustomed manner of acting ; the questions or 
the ridicule of his friends disconcert him ; his ardour 
abates and expires. He again begins to question, 
whether it be wise, whether it be necessary, whether it 
be possible ; and at last surrenders his purpose to be 
perhaps resumed when the same feelings return, and 
to be in the same manner again relinquished. 

While animated by some magnanimous sentiments 
which he has heard or read, or while musing on some 
great example, a man may conceive the design, and 
oartly sketch the plan, of a generous enterprise ; and 



70 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

his imagination revels in the felicity, to others and 
himself, that would follow from its accomplishment. 
The splendid representation always centres in himself 
as the hero who is to realize it. 

In a moment of remitted excitement, a faint whisper 
from within may doubtfully ask, Is this more than a 
dream; or am I really destined to achieve such an 
enterprise ? Destined ! — and why are not this con- 
viction of its excellence, this conscious duty of per- 
forming the noblest things that are possible, and this 
passionate ardour, enough to constitute a destiny ? — 
He feels indignant that there should be a failing part 
of his nature to defraud the nobler, and cast him below 
the ideal model and the actual examples which he is 
admiring ; and this feeling assists him to resolve, that 
he will undertake this enterprise, that he certainly will, 
though the Alps or the Ocean lie between him and the 
object. Again, his ardour slackens ; distrustful of 
himself, he wishes to know how the design would 
appear to other minds ; and when he speaks of it to 
his associates, one of them wonders, another laughs, 
and another frowns. His pride, while with them, 
attempts a manful defence ; but his resolution gradually 
crumbles down toward their level ; he becomes in a 
little while ashamed to entertain a visionary project, 
which therefore, like a rejected friend, desists from 
intruding on him or following him, except at lingering 
distance ; and he subsides, at last, into what he labours 
to believe a man too rational for the schemes of ill- 
calculating enthusiasm. And it were strange if the 
effort to make out this favourable estimate of himself 
did not succeed, while it is so much more pleasant to 
attribute one's defect of enterprise to wisdom, which 
on maturer thought disapproves it, than to imbecility, 
which shrinks from it. 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 71 

A person of undecisive character wonders how all 
the embarrassments in the world happened to meet 
exactly in his way, to place him just in that one situa- 
tion for which he is peculiarly unadapted, but in which 
he is also willing to think no other man could have 
acted with facility or confidence. Incapable of setting 
up a firm purpose on the basis of things as they are, 
he is often employed in vain speculations on some 
different supposable state of things, which would have 
saved him from all this perplexity and irresolution. 
He thinks what a determined course he could have 
pursued, if his talents, his health, his age, had been 
different; if he nad been acquainted with some one 
person sooner ; if his friends were, in this or the other 
point, different from what they are ; or if fortune had 
showered her favours on him. And he gives himself 
as much license to complain, as if all these advantages 
had been among the rights of his nativity, but refused, 
by a malignant or capricious fate, to his life. Thus 
he is occupied — instead of marking with a vigilant 
eye, and seizing with a strong hand, all the possibi- 
lities of his actual situation. 

A man without decision can never be said to belong 
to himself; since, if he dared to assert that he did, the 
puny force of some cause, about as powerful, you 
would have supposed, as a spider, may make a seizure 
of the hapless boaster the very next moment, and 
contemptuously exhibit the futility of the determina 
tions by which he was to have proved the independence 
of his understanding and his will. He belongs to 
whatever can make capture of him ; and one thing 
after another vindicates its right to him, by arresting 
him while he is trying to go on ; as twigs and chips, 
floating near the edge of a river, are intercepted by 
every weed, and whirled in every little eddy. Having 



/2 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

concluded on a design, he may pledge himself to accom- 
plish it — if the hundred diversities of feeling which 
may come within the week, will let him. His character 
precluding all foresight of his conduct, he may sit 
and wonder what form and direction his views and 
actions are destined to take to-morrow; as a farmer 
has often to acknowledge that next day's proceedings 
are at the disposal of its winds and clouds. 

This man's notions and determinations always depend 
very much on other human beings ; and what chance 
for consistency and stability, while the persons with 
whom he may converse, or transact, are so various ? 
This very evening, he may talk with a man whose 
sentiments will melt away the present form and outline 
of his purposes, however firm and defined he may have 
fancied them to be. A succession of persons whose 
faculties were stronger than his own, might, in spite of 
his irresolute re-action, take him and dispose of him as 
they pleased. Such infirmity of spirit practically con- 
fesses him made for subjection, and he passes, like a 
slave, from owner to owner. Sometimes indeed it 
happens, that a person so constituted falls into the 
train, and under the permanent ascendency, of some 
one stronger mind, which thus becomes through life 
the oracle and guide, and gives the inferior a steady 
will and plan. This, when the governing spirit is wise 
and virtuous, is a fortunate relief to the feeling, and 
an advantage gained to the utility, of the subordinate, 
and as it were, appended mind. 

The regulation of every man's plan must greatly 
depend on the course of events, which come in an order 
not to be foreseen or prevented. But in accommodating 
the plans of conduct to the train of events, the dif- 
ference between two men may be no less than that, in 
the one instance, the man is subservient to the events, 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 7*5 

and in the other, the events are made subservient to 
the man. Some men seem to have been taken along 
by a succession of events, and, as it were, handed 
forward in helpless passiveness from one to another; 
having no determined principle in their own characters, 
by which they could constrain those events to serve a 
design formed antecedently to them, or apparently in 
defiance of them. The events seized them as a neutral 
material, not they the events. Others, advancing 
through life with an internal invincible determination, 
have seemed to make the train of circumstances, what- 
ever they were, conduce as much to their chief design as 
if they had, by some directing interposition, been brought 
about on purpose. It is wonderful how even the casual- 
ties of life seem to bow to a spirit that will not bow to 
them, and yield to subserve a design which they may, in 
their first apparent tendency, threaten to frustrate. 

You may have known such examples, though they 
are comparatively not numerous. You may have seen 
a man of this vigorous character in a state of indecision 
concerning some affair in which it was necessary for 
him to determine, because it was necessary for him 
to act. But in this case, his manner would assure 
you that he would not remain long undecided ; you 
would wonder if ycu found him still balancing and 
hesitating the next day. If he explained his thoughts, 
you would perceive that their clear process, evidently 
at each effort gaining something toward the result, 
must certainly reach it ere long. The deliberation of 
such a mind is a very different thing from the fluc- 
tuation of one whose second thinking only upsets the 
first, and whose third confounds both. To know how 
to obtain a determination, is one of the first requisites 
and indications of a rationally decisive character. 

When the decision was arrived at, and a plan of 



74? ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

action approved, you would feel an assurance that 
something would absolutely be done. It is charac- 
teristic of such a mind, to think for effect ; and the 
pleasure of escaping from temporary doubt gives an 
additional impulse to the force with which it is carried 
into action. The man will not re-examine his con- 
clusions with endless repetition, and he will not be 
delayed long by consulting other persons, after he had 
ceased to consult himself. He cannot bear to sit still 
among unexecuted decisions and unattempted projects. 
We wait to hear of his achievements, and are confident 
we shall not wait long. The possibility or the means 
may not be obvious to us, but we know that every 
thing will be attempted, and that a spirit of such de- 
termined will is like a river, which, in whatever manner 
it is obstructed, will make its way somewhere. It must 
have cost Caesar many anxious hours of deliberation, 
before he decided to pass the Rubicon ; but it is pro- 
bable he suffered but few to elapse between the decision 
and the execution. And any one of his friends, who 
should have been apprised of his determination, and 
understood his character, would have smiled contemp- 
tuously to hear it insinuated that though Csesar had 
resolved, Caesar would not dare; or that though he 
might cross the Rubicon, whose opposite bank pre- 
sented to him no hostile legions, he might come to 
other rivers, which he would not cross ; or that either 
rivers, or any other obstacle, would deter him from 
prosecuting his determination trom mis ominous com- 
mencement to its very last consequence. 

One signal advantage possessed by a mind of this 
character is, that its passions are not wasted. The 
whole measure of passion of which any one, with im- 
portant transactions before him, is capable, is not more 
than enough to supply interest and energy for the 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 75 

required practical exertions ; the therefore as little as 
possible of this costly flame should be expended in a 
way that does not augment the force of action. But 
nothing can less contribute or be more destructive to 
vigour of action, than protracted anxious fluctuation, 
through resolutions adopted, rejected, resumed, sus- 
pended ; while yet nothing causes a greater expense of 
feeling. The heart is fretted and exhausted by being 
subjected to an alternation of contrary excitements, 
with the ultimate mortifying consciousness of their con- 
tributing to no end. The long-wavering deliberation, 
whether to perform some bold action of difficult virtue, 
has often cost more to feeling than the action itself, or 
a series of such actions, would have cost; with the 
great disadvantage too of not being relieved by any of 
that invigoration which the man in action finds in the 
activity itself, that spirit created to renovate the energy 
which the action is expending. When the passions are 
not consumed among dubious musings and abortive 
resolutions, their utmost value and use can be secured 
by throwing all their animating force into effective 
operation. 

Another advantage of this character, is, that it 
exempts from a great deal of interference and ob- 
structive annoyance, which an irresolute man may be 
almost sure to encounter. Weakness, in every form, 
tempts arrogance ; and a man may be allowed to wish 
for a kind of character with which stupidity and im- 
pertinence may not make so free. When a firm decisive 
spirit is recognised, it is curious to see how the space 
clears around a man, and leaves him room and freedom. 
The disposition to interrogate, dictate, or banter, pre- 
serves a respectful and politic distance, judging it not 
unwise to keep the peace with a person of so much 
energy. A conviction that he understands and that he 



76 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

wills with extraordinary force, silences the conceit that 
intended to perplex or instruct him, and intimidates 
the malice that was disposed to attack him. There is 
jl feeling, as in respect to Fate, that the decrees of so 
inflexible a spirit must be right, or that, at least, they 
will be accomplished. 

But not only will he secure the freedom of acting 
for himself, he will obtain also by degrees the coinci- 
dence of those in whose company he is to transact the 
business of life. If the manners of such a man be 
free from arrogance, and he can qualify his firmness 
with a moderate degree of insinuation ; and if his 
measures have partly lost the appearance of being the 
dictates of his will, under the wider and softer sanction 
of some experience that they are reasonable ; both 
competition and fear will be laid to sleep, and his will 
may acquire an unresisted ascendency over many who 
will be pleased to fall into the mechanism of a system, 
which they find makes them more successful and happy 
than they could have been amidst the anxiety of ad- 
justing plans and expedients of their own, and the 
consequences of often adjusting them ill. I have 
known severa 1 parents, both fathers and mothers, whose 
management of their families has answered this de- 
scription ; and has displayed a striking example of the 
facile complacency with which a number of persons, 
of different ages and dispositions, will yield to the 
decisions of a firm mind, acting on an equitable and 
enlightened system. 

The last resource of this character, is, hard inflexible 
pertinacity, on which it may be allowed to rest its 
strength after finding it can be effectual in none of its 
milder forms. I remember admiring an instance of 
this kind, in a firm, sagacious and estimable old man, 
whom I well knew, and who has long been dead. Being 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. /7 

on a jury, in a trial of life and death, he was satisfied 
of the innocence of the prisoner; the other eleven were 
of the opposite opinion. But he was resolved the man 
should not be condemned ; and as the first effort for pre- 
venting it, very properly made application to the minds 
of his associates, spending several hours in labouring to 
convince them. But he found he made no impression, 
while he was exhausting the strength which it was 
necessary to reserve for another mode of operation. He 
then calmly told them that it should now be a trial who 
could endure confinement and famine the longest, and 
that they might be quite assured he would sooner die 
than release them at the expense of the prisoner's life. 
In this situation they spent about twenty-four hours ; 
when at length all acceded to his verdict of acquittal. 
It is not necessary to amplify on the indispensable 
importance of this quality, in order to the accomplish- 
ment of any thing eminently good. We instantly see, 
that every path to signal excellence is so obstructed 
and beset, that none but a spirit so qualified can pass. 
But it is time to examine what are the elements of that 
mental constitution which is displayed in the character 
in question. 



LETTER II. 

Perhaps the best mode would be, to bring into our 
thoughts, in succession, the most remarkable examples 
of this character that we have known in real life, or 
that we have read of in history or even in fiction ; and 
attentively to observe, in their conversations, manners, 
and actions, what principles appear to produce, or to 
constitute, this commanding distinction. You will 



78 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

easily pursue this investigation yourself. I lately made 
a partial attempt, and shall offer you a number of 
suggestions. 

As a previous observation, it is beyond all doubt that 
very much depends on the constitution of the body. It 
would be for physiologists to explain, if it were expli- 
cable, the manner in which corporeal organization affects 
the mind ; I only assume it as a fact, that there is in the 
material construction of some persons, much more than 
of others, some quality which augments, if it do not 
create, both the stability of their resolution, and the 
energy of their active tendencies. There is something 
that, like the ligatures which one class of the Olympic 
combatants bound on their hands and wrists, braces 
round, if I may so describe it, and compresses the 
powers of the mind, giving them a steady forcible 
spring and reaction, which they would presently lose if 
they could be transferred into a constitution of soft, 
yielding, treacherous debility. The action of strong 
character seems to demand something firm in its mate- 
rial basis, as massive engines require, for their weight 
and for their working, to be fixed on a solid foundation. 
Accordingly I believe it would be found, that a majority 
of the persons most remarkable for decisive character, 
have possessed great constitutional physical firmness. 
I do not mean an exemption from disease and pain, 
nor any certain measure of mechanical strength, but a 
tone of vigour, the opposite to lassitude, and adapted 
to great exertion and endurance. This is clearly evinced 
in respect to many of them, by the prodigious labours 
and deprivations which they have borne in prosecuting 
their designs. The physical nature has seemed a proud 
ally of the moral one, and with a hardness that would 
never shrink, nas sustained the energy that could never 
remit. 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 79 

A view of the disparities between the different races 
of animals inferior to man, will show the effect of 
organization on disposition. Compare, for instance, a 
lion with the common beasts of our fields, many of them 
larger in bulk of animated substance. What a vast 
superiority of courage, and impetuous and determined 
action ; which difference we attribute to some great 
dissimilarity of modification in the composition of the 
animated material. Now it is probable that a difference 
somewhat analogous subsists between some human 
beings and others in point of what we may call mere 
physical constitution ; and that this is no small part of 
the cause of the striking inequalities in respect to deci- 
sive character. A man who excels in the power of 
decision has probably more of the physical quality of a 
lion in his composition than other men. 

It is observable that women in general have less in- 
flexibility of character than men ; and though many 
moral influences contribute to this difference, the prin- 
cipal cause may probably be something less firm in the 
corporeal constitution. Now that physical quality, 
whatever it is, from the smaller measure of which in 
the constitution of the frame, women have less firmness 
than men, may be possessed by one man more than by 
men in general in a greater degree of difference than 
that by which men in general exceed women. 

If there have been found some resolute spirits power- 
fully asserting themselves in feeble vehicles, it is so 
much the better; since this would authorize a hope, 
that if all the other grand requisites can be combined, 
they may form a strong character, in spite of an un- 
adapted constitution. And on the other hand, no 
constitutional hardness will form the true character, 
without those superior properties ; though it may pro- 
duce that false and contemptible kind of decision which 



80 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

we term obstinacy ; a stubbornness of temper, which 
can assign no reasons but mere will, for a constancy 
which acts in the nature of dead weight rather than of 
strength ; resembling less the reaction of a powerful 
spring than the gravitation of a big stone. 

The first prominent mental characteristic of the 
person whom I describe, is, a complete confidence in 
his own judgment. It will perhaps be said, that this is 
not so uncommon a qualification. I however think it 
is uncommon. It is indeed obvious enough, that almost 
all men have a flattering estimate of their own under- 
standing, and that as long as this understanding has no 
harder task than to form opinions which are not to 
be tried in action, they have a most self-complacent 
assurance of being right. This assurance extends to 
the judgments which they pass on the proceedings of 
others. But let them be brought into the necessity of 
adopting actual measures in an untried situation, where, 
unassisted by any previous example or practice, they 
are reduced to depend on the bare resources of judgment 
alone, and you will see in many cases, this confidence 
of opinion vanish away. The mind seems all at once 
placed in a misty vacuity, where it reaches round on 
all sides, but can find nothing to take hold of. Or if 
not lost in vacuity, it is overwhelmed in confusion ; 
and feels as if its faculties were annihilated in the 
attempt to think of schemes and calculations among 
the possibilities, chances, and hazards which overspread 
a wide untrodden field ; and this conscious imbecility 
becomes severe distress, when it is believed that con- 
sequences, of serious or unknown good or evil, are 
depending on the decisions which are to be formed 
amidst so much uncertainty. The thought painfully 
recurs at each step and turn, I may by chance be right, 
but it is fully as probable I am wrong. It is like the 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 81 

case of a rustic walking in London, who, having no 
certain direction through the vast confusion of streets 
to the place where he wishes to be, advances, and hesi- 
tates, and turns, and inquires, and becomes, at each 
corner, still more inextricably perplexed.* A man in 
this situation feels he shall be very unfortunate if he 
cannot accomplish more than he can understand. — Is 
Dot this frequently, when brought to the practical test, 
the state of a mind not disposed in general to under- 
value its own judgment ? 

In cases where judgment is not so completely be- 
wildered, you will yet perceive a great practical distrust 
of it. A man has perhaps advanced a considerable 
way towards a decision, but then lingers at a small 
distance from it, till necessity, with a stronger hand 
than conviction, impels him upon it. He cannot see 
the whole length of the question, and suspects the part 
beyond his sight to be the most important, for the most 
essential point and stress of it may be there. He fears 
that certain possible consequences, if they should 
follow, would cause him to reproach himself for his 
present determination. He wonders how this or the 
other person would have acted in the same circum- 
stances ; eagerly catches at any thing like a respectable 
precedent; would be perfectly willing to forego the 
pride of setting an example, for the safety of following 
one ; and looks anxiously round to know what each 
person may think on the subject; while the various 
and opposite opinions to which he listens, perhaps only 
serve to confound his perception of the track of thought 

* "Why does not the man call a hackney-coach ?" a gay reader, 
I am aware, will say of the person so hemazed in the great town. 
So he might, certainly; (that is, if he know where to find one ;) and 
the gay reader and I have only to deplore that there is no parallel 
convenience for the assistance of perplexed understanding?. 

G 



82 ON DECISION OJf CHARACTER. 

by which he. had hoped to reach his conclusion. Even 
when that conclusion is obtained, there are not many 
minds that might not be brought a few degrees back 
into dubious hesitation, by a man of respected un- 
derstanding saying, in a confident tone, Your plan is 
injudicious ; your selection is unfortunate ; the event 
will disappoint you. 

It cannot be supposed that I am maintaining such 
an absurdity as that a man's complete reliance on his 
own judgment is a proof of its strength and rectitude. 
Intense stupidity may be in this point the rival of 
clear-sighted wisdom. I had once some knowledge 
of a person whom no mortal could have surpassed, 
not Cromwell or Strafford, in confidence in his own 
judgment and consequent inflexibility of conduct ; 
while at the same time his successive schemes were 
ill-judged to a degree that made his disappointments 
ridiculous still more than pitiable. He was not an 
example of that simple obstinacy which I have men- 
tioned before ; for he considered his measures, and did 
not want for reasons which seriously satisfied himself 
of their being most judicious. This confidence of 
opinion may be possessed by a person in whom it will 
be contemptible or mischievous ; but its proper place 
is in a very different character, and without it there 
can be no dignified actors in human affairs. 

If, after it is seen how foolish this confidence appears 
as a feature in a weak character, it be inquired what, 
in a rightfully decisive person's manner of thinking, 
it is that authorizes him in this firm assurance that his 
view of the concerns before him is comprehensive and 
accurate ; he may, in answer, justify his confidence on 
such grounds as these : that he is conscious that objects 
are presented to his mind with an exceedingly distinct 
and perspicuous aspect, not like the shapes of moon- 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. S3 

light, or like Ossian's ghosts, dim forms of uncircum- 
scribed shade ; that he sees the different parts of the 
subject in an arranged order, not in unconnected 
fragments ; that in each deliberation the main object 
keeps its clear pre-eminence, and he perceives the 
bearings which the subordinate and conducive ones 
have on it ; that perhaps several trains of thought, 
drawn from different points, lead him to the same con- 
clusion ; and that he finds his judgment does not vary 
in servility to the moods of his feelings. 

It may be presumed that a high degree of this cha- 
racter is not attained without a considerable measure 
of that kind of certainty, with respect to the relations 
of things, which can be acquired only from experienco 
and observation. A very protracted course of time, 
however, may not be indispensable for this discipline. 
An extreme vigilance in the exercise of observation, 
and a strong and strongly exerted power of generalizing 
on experience, may have made a comparatively short 
time enough to supply a large share of the wisdom 
derivable from these sources ; so that a man may long 
before he is old be rich in the benefits of experience, 
and therefore may have all the decision of judgment 
legitimately founded on that accomplishment. This 
knowledge from experience he will be able to apply in 
a direct and immediate manner, and without refining 
it into general principles, to some situations of affairs, 
so as to anticipate the consequences of certain actions 
in those situations by as plain a reason, and as confi- 
dently, as the kind of fruit to be produced by a given 
kind of tree. Thus far the facts of his experience will 
serve him as precedents ; cases of such near resem- 
blance to those in which he is now to act as to afford 
him a rule by the most immediate inference. At the 
next step, he will be able to apply this knowledge, now 

g 2 



84 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

converted into general principles, to a multitude of 
cases bearing but a partial resemblance to any thing he 
has actually witnessed. And then, in looking forward 
to the possible occurrence of altogether new combi- 
nations of circumstances, he can trust to the resources 
which he is persuaded his intellect will open to him, or 
is humbly confident, if he be a devout man, that the 
Supreme Intelligence will not suffer to be wanting to 
him, when the occasion arrives. In proportion as his 
views include, at all events, more certainties than those 
of other men, he is with good reason less fearful of 
contingencies. And if, in the course of executing his 
design, unexpected disastrous events should befall, but 
which are not owing to any thing wrong in the plan 
and principles of that design, but to foreign causes ; 
it will be characteristic of a strong mind to attribute 
these events discriminatively to their own causes, and 
not to the plan, which, therefore, instead of being dis- 
liked and relinquished, will be still as much approved 
as before, and the man will proceed calmly to the 
sequel of it without any change of arrangement ; — 
unless indeed these sinister events should be of such 
consequence as to alter the whole state of things to 
which the plan was correctly adapted, and so create a 
necessity to form an entirely new one, adapted to that 
altered state. 

Though he do not absolutely despise the under- 
standings of other men, he will perceive their dimen- 
sions as compared with his own, which will preserve 
its independence through every communication and 
encounter. It is however a part of this very inde- 
pendence, that he will hold himself free to alter his 
opinion, if the information which may be communi- 
cated to him shall bring sufficient reason. And as 
no one is so sensible of the importance of a complete 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 85 

acquaintance with a subject as the man who is always 
endeavouring to think conclusively, he will listen with 
the utmost attention to the information, which may 
sometimes be received from persons for whose judgment 
he has no great respect. The information which they 
may afford him is not at all the less valuable for the 
circumstance, that his practical inferences from it may 
be quite different from theirs. If they will only give 
him an accurate account of facts, he does not oare how 
indifferently they may reason on them. Counsel will 
in general have only so much weight with him as it 
supplies knowledge which may assist his judgment; 
he will yield nothing to it implicitly as authority, 
except when it comes from persons of approved and 
eminent wisdom ; but he may hear it with more candour 
and good temper, from being conscious of this inde- 
pendence of his judgment, than the man who is afraid 
lest the first person that begins to persuade him, should 
baffle his determination. He feels it entirely a work of 
his own to deliberate and to resolve, amidst all the 
advice which may be attempting to control him. If, 
with an assurance of his intellect being of the highest 
order, he also holds a commanding station, he will feel 
it gratuitous to consult with any one, excepting merely 
to receive statements of facts. This appears to be 
exemplified in the man, who has lately shown the 
nations of Europe how large a portion of the world 
may, when Heaven permits, be at the mercy of the 
solitary workings of an individual mind. 

The strongest trial of this determination of judgment 
is in those cases of urgency where something must 
immediately be done, and the alternative of right or 
wrong is of important consequence ; as in the duty of 
a medical man, treating a patient whose situation at 
once requires a daring practice, and puts it in painful 



86 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

doubt what to dare. A still stronger illustration is the 
case of a general who is compelled, in the very instant, 
to make dispositions on which the event of a battle, 
the lives of thousands of his men, or perhaps almost the 
fate of a nation, may depend. He may even be placed 
in a dilemma which appears equally dreadful on both 
sides. Such a predicament is described in Denon's 
account of one of the sanguinary conflicts between the 
French and Mamelukes, as having for a while held in 
the most distressing hesitation General Desaix, though 
a prompt and intrepid commander. 



LETTER m. 

This indispensable basis, confidence of opinion, is 
however not enough to constitute the character in 
question. For many persons, who have been conscious 
and proud of a much stronger grasp of thought than 
ordinary men, and have held the most decided opinions 
on important things to be done, have yet exhibited, in 
the listlessness or inconstancy of their actions, a contrast 
and a disgrace to the operations of their understandings. 
For want of some cogent feeling impelling them to 
carry every internal decision into action, they have 
been still left where they were ; and a dignified judg- 
ment has been seen in the hapless plight of having no 
effective forces to execute its decrees. 

It is evident then, (and I perceive I have partly 
anticipated this article in the first letter,) that another 
essential principle of the character is, a total incapa- 
Dility of surrendering to indifference or delay the 
serious determinations of the mind. A strenuous will 
must accompanv the conclusions of thought, and con- 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. S7 

stantly incite the utmost efforts to give them a prac- 
tical result. The intellect must be invested, if I maj 
so describe it, with a glowing atmosphere of passion, 
under the influence of which, the cold dictates of 
reason take fire, and spring into active pow T ers. 

Revert once more in your thoughts to the persons 
most remarkably distinguished by this quality. You 
will perceive, that instead of allowing themselves to 
sit down delighted after the labour of successful think- 
ing, as if they had completed some great thing, they 
regard this labour but as a circumstance of preparation, 
and the conclusions resulting from it as of no more 
value, (till going into effect,) than the entombed lamps 
of the Rosicrucians. They are not disposed to be 
content in a region of mere ideas, while they ought to 
be advancing into the field of corresponding realities ; 
they retire to that region sometimes, as ambitious 
adventurers anciently went to Delphi, to consult, 
but not to reside. You will therefore find them 
almost uniformly in determined pursuit of some object, 
on which they fix a keen and steady look, never losing 
sight of it while they follow it through the confused 
multitude of other things. 

A person actuated by such a spirit, seems by his 
manner to say, Do you think that I would not disdain 
to adopt a purpose which I would not devote my 
utmost force to effect; or that having thus devoted my 
exertions, I will intermit or withdraw them, through 
indolence, debility, or caprice ; or that I will surren- 
der my object to any interference except the uncon- 
trollable dispensations of Providence ? No, I am 
linked to my determination with iron bands ; it clings 
to me as if a part of my destiny ; and if its frustration 
be, on the contrary, doomed a part of that destiny, ft 
is doomed so only through calamity or death, 



£S ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

This display of systematic energy seems to indicate 
a constitution of mind in which the passions are com- 
mensurate with the intellectual part, and at the same 
time hold an inseparable correspondence with it, like 
the faithful sympathy of the tides with the phases of 
the moon. There is such an equality and connexion, 
that subjects of the decisions of judgment become pro- 
portionally and of course the objects of passion. When 
the judgment decides with a very strong preference, 
that same strength of preference, actuating also the 
passions, devotes them with energy to the object, as long 
as it is thus approved; and this will produce such a con- 
duct as I have described. When therefore a firm, self- 
confiding, and unaltering judgment fails to make a 
decisive character, it is evident either that the passions 
in that mind are too languid to be capable of a strong 
and unremitting excitement, which defect makes an 
indolent or irresolute man ; or that they perversely 
sometimes coincide with judgment and sometimes clash 
with it, which makes an inconsistent or versatile man. 

There is no man so irresolute as not to act with 
determination in many single cases, where the motive 
is powerful and simple, and where there is no need of 
plan and perseverance ; hut this gives no claim to the 
term character, which expresses the habitual tenour of 
a man's active being. The character may be displayed 
in the successive unconnected undertakings, which are 
each of limited extent, and end with the attainment of 
their particular objects. But it is seen in its most 
commanding aspect in those grand schemes of action, 
which have no necessary point of conclusion, which 
continue on through successive years, and extend even 
to that dark period when the agent himself is with- 
drawn from human sight. 

I have repeatedly, in conversation, remarked to you 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 89 

the effect of what has been called a Ruling Passion. 
When its object is noble, and an enlightened under- 
standing regulates its movements, it appears to me a 
great felicity; but whether its object be noble or not, 
it infallibly creates, where it exists in great force, that 
active ardent constancy, which I describe as a capital 
feature of the decisive character. The Subject of 
such a commanding passion wonders, if indeed he were 
at leisure to wonder, at the persons who pretend to 
attach importance to an object which they make none 
but the most languid efforts to secure. The utmost 
powers of the man are constrained into the service of 
the favourite Cause by this passion, which sweeps 
away, as it advances, all the trivial objections and 
little opposing motives, and seems almost to open a 
way through impossibilities. This spirit comes on him 
in the morning as soon as he recovers his conscious- 
ness, and commands and impels him through the day, 
with a power from which he could not emancipate 
himself if he would. When the force of habit is added, 
the determination becomes invincible, and seems to 
assume rank with the great laws of nature, making 
it nearly as certain that such a man will persist in his 
course as that in the morning the sun will rise. 

A persisting untameable efficacy of soul gives a 
seductive and pernicious dignity even to a character 
which every moral principle forbids us to approve. 
Often in the narrations of history and fiction, an agent 
of the most dreadful designs compels a sentiment of 
deep respect for the unconquerable mind displayed in 
their execution. While we shudder at his activity, we 
say with regret, mingled with an admiration which 
borders on partiality, What a noble being this would 
have been, if goodness had been his destiny ! The 
partiality is evinced in the very selection of terms, 



90 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

by which we show that we are tempted to refer his 
atrocity rather to his destiny than to his choice. I 
wonder whether an emotion like this, have not been 
experienced by each reader of Paradise Lost, relative 
to the Leader of the infernal spirits; a proof, if such 
were the fact, of some insinuation of evil into the 
magnificent creation of the poet. In some of the high 
examples of ambition (the ambition which is a vice), 
we almost revere the force of mind which impelled 
them forward through the longest series of action, 
superior to doubt and fluctuation, and disdainful of 
ease, of pleasures, of opposition, and of danger. We 
bend in homage before the ambitious spirit which 
reached the true sublime in the reply of Pompey to his 
friends, who dissuaded him from hazarding his life 
on a tempestuous sea in order to be at Rome on an 
important occasion : " It is necessary for me to go, 
it is not necessary for me to live." 

Revenge has produced wonderful examples of this 
unremitting constancy to a purpose. Zanga is a well- 
supported illustration. And you may have read of a real 
instance of a Spaniard, who, being injured by another 
inhabitant of the same town, resolved to destroy him ■ 
the other was apprised of this, and removed with the 
utmost secresy, as he thought, to another town at a 
considerable distance, where however he had not 
been more than a day or two, before he found that 
his enemy also was there. He removed in the same 
manner to several parts of the kingdom, remote from 
each other ; but in every place quickly perceived that 
his deadly pursuer was near him. At last he went to 
South America, where he had enjoyed his security but 
a very short time, before his relentless pursuer came 
up with him, and accomplished his purpose. 

You may recollect the mention in one of our con- 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 91 

versations, of a young man who wasted in two or three 
years a large patrimony, in profligate revels with a 
number of worthless associates calling themselves his 
friends, till his last means were exhausted, when they 
of course treated him with neglect or contempt. Re- 
duced to absolute want, he one day went out of the 
house with an intention to put an end to his life ; but 
wandering awhile almost unconsciously, he came to 
the brow of an eminence which overlooked what were 
lately his estates. Here he sat down, and remained 
fixed in thought a number of hours, at the end of 
which he sprang from the ground with a vehement 
exulting emotion. He had formed his resolution, 
which was that all these estates should be his again; 
he had formed his plan too, which he instantly began 
to execute. He walked hastily forward, determined to 
seize the very first opportunity, of however humble a 
kind, to gain any money, though it were ever so de- 
spicable a trifle, and resolved absolutely not to spend, if 
he could help it, a farthing of whatever he might obtain. 
The first thing that drew his attention was a heap of 
coals shot out of carts on the pavement before a house. 
He offered himself to shovel or wheel them into the 
place where they were to be laid, and was employed. 
He received a few pence for the labour ; and then, in 
pursuance of the saving part o his plan, requested 
some small gratuity of meat and drink, which was 
given him. He then looked out for the next thing 
that might chance to offer; and went, with inde- 
fatigable industry, through a succession of servile 
employments, in different places, of longer and shorter 
duration, still scrupulously avoiding, as far as possible, 
the expense of a penny. He promptly seized every 
opportunity which could advance his design, without 
regarding the meanness of occupation or appearance. 



92 OX DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

By this method he had gained, after a considerable 
time, money enough to purchase, in order to sell 
again, a few cattle, of which he had taken pains to 
understand the value. He speedily but cautiously 
turned his first gains into second advantages ; retained 
without a single deviation his extreme parsimony ; 
and thus advanced by degrees into larger transactions 
and incipient wealth. I did not hear, or have forgotten 
the continued course of his life ; but the final result 
was, that he more than recovered his lost possessions, 
and died an inveterate miser, worth 60,000/. I have 
always recollected this as a signal instance, though 
in an unfortunate and ignoble direction, of decisive 
character, and of the extraordinary effect, which, 
according to general laws, belongs to the strongest 
form of such a character. 

But not less decision has been displayed by men of 
virtue. In this distinction no man ever exceeded, or ever 
will exceed, for instance, the late illustrious Howard. 

The energy of his determination was so great, that 
if, instead of being habitual, it had been shown only 
for a short time on particular occasions, it would have 
appeared a vehement impetuosity; but by being uninter- 
mitted, it had an equability of manner which scarcely 
appeared to exceed the tone of a calm constancy, it 
was so totally the reverse of any thing like turbulence 
or agitation. It was the calmness of an intensity kept 
uniform by the nature of the human mind forbidding 
it to be more, and by the character of the individual 
forbidding it to be less. The habitual passion of his 
mind was a pitch of excitement and impulsion almost 
equal to the temporary extremes and paroxysms of 
common minds ; as a great river, in its customary 
state, is equal to a small or moderate one when swollen 
to a torrent. 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 93 

The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, 
and commencing them in action, was the same. I 
wonder what must have been the amount of that bribe, 
in emolument or pleasure, that would have detained 
him a week inactive after their final adjustment. The 
law which carries water down a declivity was not more 
unconquerable and invariable than the determination 
of his feelings toward the main object. The importance 
of this object held his faculties in a state of determi- 
nation which was too rigid to be affected by lighter 
interests, and on which therefore the beauties of nature 
and of art had no power. He had no leisure feeling 
which he could spare to be diverted among the innu- 
merable varieties of the extensive scene which he 
traversed ; his subordinate feelings nearly lost their 
separate existence and operation, by falling into the 
grand one. There have not been wanting trivial minds, 
to mark this as a fault in his character. But the mere 
men of taste ought to be silent respecting such a man 
as Howard ; he is above their sphere of judgment. 
The invisible spirits, who fulfil their commission of 
philanthropy among mortals, do not care about pictures, 
statues, and sumptuous buildings ; and no more did he> 
when the time in which he must have inspected and 
admired them, would have been taken from the work 
to which he had consecrated his life. The curiosity 
which he might feel, was reduced to wait till the hour 
should arrive, when its gratification should be presented 
by conscience, (which kept a scrupulous charge of all 
his time,) as the duty of that hour. If he was still at 
every hour, when it came, fated to feel the attractions 
of the fine arts but the second claim, they might be 
sure of their revenge ; for no other man will ever visit 
Rome under such a despotic acknowledged rule of 
duty, as to refuse himself time for surveying the mag- 



94? ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

nificence of its ruins. Such a sin against taste is very 
far beyond the reach of common saintship to commit. 
It implied an inconceivable severity of conviction, that 
he had one thing to do, and that he who would do some 
great thing in this short life, must apply himself to the 
work with such a concentration of his forces, as, to idle 
spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, looks 
like insanity. 

His attention was so strongly and tenaciously fixed 
on his object, that even at the greatest distance, as the 
Egyptian pyramids to travellers, it appeared to him 
with a luminous distinctness as if it had been nigh, and 
beguiled the toilsome length of labour and enterprise 
by which he was to reach it. So conspicuous was it 
before him, that not a step deviated from the direction, 
and every movement and every day was an approxi- 
mation. As his method referred every thing he did 
and thought to the end, and as his exertion did not 
relax for a moment, he made the trial, so seldom made, 
what is the utmost effect which may be granted to the 
last possible efforts of a human agent : and therefore 
what he did not accomplish, he might conclude to be 
placed beyond the sphere of mortal activity, and calmly 
leave to the immediate disposal of Providence. 
. Unless the eternal happiness of mankind be an in- 
significant concern, and the passion to promote it an 
inglorious distinction, I may cite George Whitefield as 
a noble instance of this attribute of the decisive cha- 
racter, this intense necessity of action. The great 
cause which was so languid a thing in the hands of 
many of its advocates, assumed in his administrations 
an immitigable urgency. 

Many of the christian missionaries among the 
heathens, such as Brainerd, Elliot, and Schwartz, have 
displayed memorable examples of this dedication of 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 95 

their whole being to their office, this abjuration of all 
the quiescent feelings. 

This would be the proper place for introducing (if 
I did not hesitate to introduce in any connexion with 
merely human instances) the example of him who said, 
" I must be about my Father's business. My meat and 
drink is to do the will of him that sent me, and to 
finish his work. I have a baptism to be baptized with, 
and how am I straitened till it be accomplished !" 



LETTER LV. 

After the illustrations on the last article, it will seem 
but a very slight transition when T proceed to specify 
Courage, as an essential part of the decisive character. 
An intelligent man, adventurous only in thought, may 
sketch the most excellent scheme, and after duly ad- 
miring it, and himself as its author, may be reduced to 
say, What a noble spirit that would be which should 
dare to realize this ! A noble spirit ! is it I ? And 
his heart may answer in the negative, while he glances 
a mortified thought of inquiry round to recollect 
persons who would venture what he dares not, and 
almost hopes not to find them. Or if by extreme effort 
he has brought himself to a resolution of braving the 
difficulty, he is compelled to execrate the timid lin- 
gerings that still keep him back from the trial. A man 
endowed with the complete character, might say, with 
a sober consciousness as remote from the spirit of 
bravado as it is from timidity, Thus, and thus, is my 
conviction and my determination ; now for the phantoms 
of fear ; let me look them in the face ; their menacing 
glare and ominous tones will be lest on me ; "I dare 



96 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER, 

do all that may become a man." I trust I shall firmly 
confront every thing that threatens me while prosecuting 
my purpose, and I am prepared to meet the conse- 
quences of it when it is accomplished. I should despise a 
being, though it were myself, whose agency could be 
held enslaved by the gloomy shapes of imagination, by 
the haunting recollections of a dream, by the whistling 
or the howling of winds, by the shriek of owls, by the 
shades of midnight, or by the threats or frowns of man. 
I should be indignant to feel that, in the commencement 
of an adventure, I could think of nothing but the deep 
pit by the side of the way where I must walk, into 
which I may slide, the mad animal which it is not im- 
possible that I may meet, or the assassin who may lurk 
in a thicket of yonder wood. And I disdain to com- 
promise the interests that rouse me to action, for the 
privilege of an ignoble security. 

As the conduct of a man of decision is always in- 
dividual, and often singular, he may expect some serious 
trials of courage. For one thing, he may be encoun- 
tered by the strongest disapprobation of many of his 
connexions, and the censure of the greater part of the 
society where he is known. In this case, it is not a 
man of common spirit that can show himself just as at 
other times, and meet their anger in the same undis- 
turbed manner as he would meet some ordinary in- 
clemency of the weather ; that can, without harshness 
or violence, continue to effect every moment some part 
of his design, coolly replying to each ungracious look 
and indignant voice, I am sorry to oppose you : I am 
not unfriendly to you, while thus persisting in what 
excites your displeasure ; it would please me to have 
your approbation and concurrence, and I think I should 
have them if you would seriously consider my reasons ; 
but meanwhile, I am superior to opinion, I am not to 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 97 

be intimidated by reproaches, nor would your favour 
and applause be any reward for the sacrifice of my 
object. As you can do without my approbation, I can 
certainly do without yours ; it is enough that I can 
approve myself, it is enough that I appeal to the last 
authority in the creation. Amuse yourselves as you 
may, by continuing to censure or to rail ; / must con- 
tinue to act. 

The attack of contempt and ridicule is perhaps a 
still greater trial of courage. It is felt by all to be an 
admirable thing, when it can in no degree be ascribed 
to the hardness of either stupidity or confirmed de- 
pravity, to sustain for a considerable time, or in nume- 
rous instances, the looks of scorn, or an unrestrainea 
shower of taunts and jeers, with perfect composure, 
and proceed immediately after, or at the time, on the 
business that provokes all this ridicule. This invinci- 
bility of temper will often make even the scoffers 
themselves tired of the sport : they begin to feel that 
against such a man it is a poor sort of hostility to joke 
and sneer ; and there is nothing that people are more 
mortified to spend in vain than their scorn. Till, 
however, a man shall become a veteran, he must reckon 
on sometimes meeting this trial in the course of virtuous 
enterprise. And if, at the suggestion of some meri- 
torious but unprecedented proceeding, I hear him ask, 
with a look and tone of shrinking alarm, But will they 
not laugh at me ? — I know that he is not the person 
whom this essay attempts to describe. A man of the 
right kind would say, They will smile, they will laugh, 
will they ? Much good may it do them. I have 
something else to do than to trouble myself about their 
mirth. I do not care if the whole neighbourhood were 
to laugh in a chorus. I should indeed be sorry to see 
or hear such a number of fools, but pleased enough to 

H 



98 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

find that they considered me as an outlaw to their tribe. 
The good to result from my project will not be less, 
because vain and shallow minds that cannot understand 
it, are diverted at it and at me. What should I think 
of my pursuits, if every trivial thoughtless being could 
comprehend or would applaud them ; and of myself, 
if my courage needed levity and ignorance for their 
allies, or could be abashed at their sneers ? 

I remember, that on reading the account of the 
project for conquering Peru, formed by Almagro, 
Pizarro, and De Luques, while abhorring the actuating 
principle of the men, I could not help admiring the 
hardihood of mind which made them regardless of scorn. 
These three individuals, before they had obtained any 
associates, or arms, or soldiers, or more than a very 
imperfect knowledge of the power of the kingdom they 
were to conquer, celebrated a solemn mass in one of 
the great churches, as a pledge and a commencement 
of the enterprise, amidst the astonishment and contempt 
expressed by a multitude of people for what was deemed 
a monstrous project. They, however, proceeded through 
the service, and afterwards to their respective depart- 
ments of preparation, with an apparently entire insen- 
sibility to all this triumphant contempt ; and thus gave 
the first proof of possessing that invincible firmness 
with which they afterwards prosecuted their design, 
till they attained a success, the destructive process 
and many of the results of which humanity has ever 
deplored, 

Milton's Abdiel is a noble illustration of the courage 
that rises invincible above the derision not only of the 
multitude, but of the proud and elevated. 

But there may be situations where decision of cha- 
racter will be brought to trial against evils of a darker 
aspect than disapprobation or contempt There may 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 99 

be the threatening of serious sufferings ; and very 
often, to dare as far as conscience or a great cause 
required, has been to dare to die. In almost all plans 
of great enterprise, a man must systematically dismiss, 
at the entrance, every wish to stipulate with his destiny 
for safety. He voluntarily treads within the precincts 
of danger ; and though it be possible he may escape, 
he ought to be prepared w r ith the fortitude of a self- 
devoted victim. This is the inevitable condition on 
which heroes, travellers or missionaries among savage 
nations, and reformers on a grand scale, must commence 
their career. Either they must allay their fire of 
enterprise, or abide the liability to be exploded by it 
from the world. 

The last decisive energy of a rational courage, which 
confides in the Supreme Power, is very sublime. It 
makes a man who intrepidly dares every thing that 
can oppose or attack him within the whole sphere of 
mortality ; who will still press tow r ard his object while 
death is impending over him ; who w r ould retain his 
purpose unshaken amidst the ruins of the world. 

It w r as in the true elevation of this character that 
Luther, when cited to appear at the Diet of Worms, 
under a very questionable assurance of safety from 
high authority, said to his friends, who conjured him 
not to go, and warned him by the example of John 
Huss, whom, in a similar situation, the same pledge 
of protection had not saved from the fire, " I am 
called in the name of God to go, and I would go, 
though I were certain to meet as many devils in 
Worms as there are tiles on the houses." 

A reader of the Bible w T ill not forget Daniel, braving 
in calm devotion the decree which virtually consigned 
him to the den of lions : or Shadrach, Meshach, and 
Abed-nego, saying to the tyrant, " We are not careful 

h2 



100 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

to answer thee in this matter," when the "burning 
fiery" furnace was in sight. 

The combination of these several essential principles 
constitutes that state of mind which is a grand requisite 
to decision of character, and perhaps its most striking 
distinction — the full agreement of the mind with 
itself, the consenting co-operation of all its powers 
and all its dispositions. 

What an unfortunate task it would be for a cha- 
rioteer, who had harnessed a set of horses, however 
strong, if he could not make them draw together ; if 
while one of them would go forward, another was 
restiff, another struggled backward, another started aside. 
If even one of the four were unmanageably perverse, 
while the three were tractable, an aged beggar with 
his crutch might leave Phaeton behind. So in a human 
being, unless the chief forces act consentaneously, 
there can be no inflexible vigour, either of will or 
execution. One dissentient principle in the mind not 
only deducts so much from the strength and mass 
of its agency, but counteracts and embarrasses all 
the rest. If the judgment holds in low estimation that 
which yet the passions incline to pursue, the pursuit 
will be irregular and inconstant, though it may have 
occasional fits of animation, when those passions 
happen to be highly stimulated. If there is an oppo- 
sition between judgment and habit, though the man 
will probably continue to act mainly under the sway 
of habit in spite of his opinions, yet sometimes the 
intrusion of those opinions will have for the moment 
an effect like that of Prospero's wand on the limbs 
of Ferdinand ; and to be alternately impelled by habit, 
and checked by opinion, will be a state of vexatious 
debility. If two principal passions are opposed to 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 101 

each other, they will utterly distract any mind, what- 
ever might be the force of its faculties if acting 
without embarrassment. The one passion may be 
somewhat stronger than the other, and therefore just 
prevail barely enough to give a feeble impulse to the 
conduct of the man ; a feebleness which will continue 
till there be a greater disparity between these rivals, 
in consequence of a reinforcement to the slightly 
ascendent one, by new impressions, or the gradual 
strengthening of habit forming in its favour. The 
disparity must be no less than an absolute predomi- 
nance of the one and subjection of the other, before 
the prevailing passion will have at liberty from the 
intestine conflict any large measure of its force to 
throw activity into the system of conduct. If, for 
instance, a man feels at once the love of fame which 
is to be gained only by arduous exertions, and an 
equal degree of the love of ease or pleasure which 
precludes those exertions ; if he is eager to show off 
in splendour, and yet anxious to save money ; if he 
has the curiosity of adventure, and yet that solicitude 
for safety, which forbids him to climb a precipice, 
descend into a cavern, or explore a dangerous wild; 
if he has the stern will of a tyrant, and yet the relent- 
ings of a man ; if he has the ambition to domineer over 
his fellow-mortals, counteracted by a reluctance to 
inflict so much mischief as it might cost to subdue 
them ; we may anticipate the irresolute contradictory 
tenour of his actions. Especially if conscience, that 
great troubler of the human breast, loudly declares 
against a man's wishes or projects; it will be a fatal 
enemy to decision, till it either reclaim the delinquent 
passions, or be debauched or laid dead by them. 

Lady Macbeth may be cited as a harmonious cha- 
racter, though the epithet seem strangely applied. 
She had capacitv, ambition, and courage ; anil she 



IG2 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

willed the death of the king. Macbeth had still more 
capacity, ambition, and courage ; and he also willed 
the murder of the king. But he had, besides, hu- 
manity, generosity, conscience, and some measure of 
what forms the power of conscience, the fear of a 
Superior Being. Consequently, when the dreadful 
moment approached, he felt an insupportable conflict 
between these opposite principles, and when it was 
arrived his utmost courage began to fail. The worst 
part of his nature fell prostrate under the power of the 
better ; the angel of goodness arrested the demon that 
grasped the dagger ; and would have taken that dagger 
away, if the pure demoniac firmness of his wife, who 
had none of these counteracting principles, had not 
shamed and hardened him to the deed. 

The poet's delineation of Richard III. offers a 
dreadful specimen of this indivisibility of mental im- 
pulse. After his determination was fixed, the whole 
mind with the compactest fidelity supported him in 
prosecuting it. Securely privileged from all interference 
of doubt that could linger, or humanity that could 
soften, or timiditv that could shrink, he advanced with 
a concentrated constancy through scene after scene or 
atrocity, still fulfilling his vow to " cut his way through 
with a bloody axe/' He did not waver while he 
pursued his object, nor relent when he seized it. 

Cromwell (whom I mention as a parallel, of course 
not to Richard's wickedness, but to his inflexible 
vigour,) lost his mental consistency in the latter end of 
a career which had displayed a superlative example of 
decision. It appears that the wish to be a king, at 
last arose in a mind which had contemned royalty, and 
battled it from the land. As far as he really had any 
republican principles and partialities, this new desire 
must have been a very untoward associate for them, 
and must have produced a schism in the breast where 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 103 

all the strong forces of thought and passion had acted 
till then in concord. The new form of ambition 
became just predominant enough to carry him, by slow 
degrees, through the embarrassment and the shame of 
this incongruity, into an irresolute determination to 
assume the crown ; so irresolute, that he was reduced 
again to a mortifying indecision by the remonstrances 
of some of his friends, which he could have slighted, 
and by an apprehension of the public disapprobation, 
which he could have braved, if some of the principles 
of his own mind had not shrunk or revolted from the 
design. When at last the motives for relinquishing 
this design prevailed, it was by so small a degree of 
preponderance, that his reluctant refusal of the offered 
crown was the voice of only half his soul. 

Not only two distinct counteracting passions, but 
one passion interested for two objects, both equally 
desirable, but of which the one must be sacrificed, may 
annihilate in that instance the possibility of a resolute 
promptitude of conduct. I recollect reading in an old 
divine, a story from some historian, applicable to this 
remark. A father went to the agents of a tyrant, to 
endeavour to redeem his two sons, military men, who, 
with some other captives of war, were condemned to 
die. He offered, as a ransom, a sum of money, and to 
surrender his own life. The tyrant's agents who had 
them in charge, informed him that this equivalent 
would be accepted for one of his sons, and for one 
only, because they should be accountable for the execu- 
tion of two persons ; he might therefore choose which 
he would redeem. Anxious to save even one of them 
thus at the expense of his own life, he yet was unable 
to decide which should die, by choosing the other to 
live, and remained in the agony of this dilemma so long 
that they were both irreversibly ordered for execution. 



104 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 



LETTER V. 

It were absurd to suppose that any human being can 
attain a state of mind capable of acting in all instances 
invariably with the full power of determination ; but 
it is obvious that many have possessed a habitual and 
very commanding measure of it ; and I think the pre- 
ceding remarks have taken account of its chief cha- 
racteristics and constituent principles. A number of 
additional observations remains. 

The slightest view of human affairs shows what 
fatal and wide-spread mischief may be caused by men 
of this character, when misled or wicked. You have 
but to recollect the conquerors, despots, bigots, unjust 
conspirators, and signal villains of every class, who 
have blasted society by the relentless vigour which 
could act consistently and heroically wrong, Till 
therefore the virtue of mankind be greater, there is 
reason to be pleased that so few of them are endowed 
with extraordinary decision. 

Even when dignified by wisdom and principle, this 
quality requires great care in the possessors of it to 
prevent its becoming unamiable. As it involves much 
practical assertion of superiority over other human beings, 
it should be as temperate and conciliating as possible in 
manner ; else pride will feel provoked, affection hurt, 
and weakness oppressed. But this is not the manner 
which will be most natural to such a man ; rather it 
will be high-toned, laconic, and careless of pleasing. 
He will have the appearance of keeping himself always 
at a distance from social equality ; and his friends will 
feel as if their friendship were continually sliding into 
subserviency ; while his intimate connexions will think 



ON DECISION OY CHARACTER. 105 

he does not attach the due importance either to their 
opinions or *o their regard. His manner, when they 
differ from him, or complain, will be too much like the 
expression of slight estimation, and sometimes of 
disdain. 

When he can accomplish a design by his own 
personal means alone, he may be disposed to separate 
himself to the work with the cold self-enclosed in- 
dividuality on which no one has any hold, which seems 
to recognise no kindred being in the world, which 
takes little account of good wishes and kind concern, 
any more than it cares for opposition ; which seeks 
neither aid nor sympathy, and seems to say, I do not 
want any of you, and I am glad that I do not ; leave 
me alone to succeed or die. This has a very repellent 
effect on the friends who wished to feel themselves of 
some importance, in some way or other, to a person 
whom they are constrained to respect. When assistance 
is indispensable to his undertakings, his mode of signi- 
fying it will seem to command, rather than invite, the 
co-operation. 

In consultation, his manner will indicate that when 
he is equally with the rest in possession of the circum- 
stances of the case, he does not at all expect to hear 
any opinions that shall correct his own ; but is satisfied 
that either his present conception of the subject is the 
just one, or that his own mind must originate that 
which shall be so. This difference will be apparent 
between him and his associates, that their manner of 
receiving his opinions is that of agreement or dissent; 
his manner of receiving theirs is judicial — that of 
sanction or rejection. He has the tone of authori- 
tatively deciding on what they say, but never of sub- 
mitting to decision what himself says. Their coincidence 
with his views does not give him a firmer assurance of 



106 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

his being right, nor their dissent any other impression 
than that of their incapacity to judge. If his feeling 
took the distinct form of a reflection, it would be, 
Mine is the business of comprehending and devising, 
and I am here to rule this company, and not to consult 
them ; I want their docility, and not their arguments ; 
I am come, not to seek their assistance in thinking, 
but to determine their concurrence in executing what 
is already thought for them. Of course, many sugges- 
tions and reasons which appear important to those they 
come from will be disposed of by him with a transient 
attention, or a light facility, that will seem very dis- 
respectful to persons who possibly hesitate to admit 
that he is a demi-god, and that they are but idiots. Lord 
Chatham, in going out of the House of Commons, 
just as one of the speakers against him concluded his 
speech by emphatically urging what he perhaps rightly 
thought the unanswerable question, " Where can we 
find means to support such a war?'' turned round a 
moment, and gaily chanted, " Gentle shepherd tell me 
where ?" 

Even the assenting convictions, and practical com- 
pliances, yielded by degrees to this decisive man, may 
be somewhat undervalued; as they will appear to him 
no more than simply coming, and that very slowly, to 
a right apprehension ; whereas he understood and 
decided justly from the first, and has been right all 
this while. 

He will be in danger of rejecting the just claims of 
charity for a little tolerance to the prejudices, hesitation, 
and timidity, of those with whom he has to act. He 
will say to himself, I wish there were any thing like 
manhood among the beings called men ; and that they 
could have the sense and spirit not to let themselves 
be hampered by so many silly notions and childish 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 107 

fears ! Why cannot they either determine with some 
promptitude, or let me, that can, do it for them ? 
Am I to wait till debility become strong, and folly 
wise ? — If full scope be allowed to these tendencies, 
they may give too much of the character of a tyrant 
to even a man of elevated virtue, since, in the conscious- 
ness of the right intention, and the assurance of the 
wise contrivance, of his designs, he will hold himself 
justified in being regardless of every thing but the ac- 
complishment of them. He will forget all respect for 
the feelings and liberties of beings who are accounted 
but a subordinate machinery, to be actuated, or to be 
thrown aside when not actuated, by the spring of his 
commanding spirit. 

I have before asserted that this strong character 
may be exhibited with a mildness, or at least temperance, 
of manner; and that, generally, it will thus best 
secure its efficacy. But this mildness must often be at 
the cost of great effort; and how much considerate 
policy or benevolent forbearance it will require, for a 
man to exert his utmost vigour in the very task, as it 
will appear to him at the time, of cramping that 
vigour ! — Lycurgus appears to have been a high 
example of conciliating patience in the resolute pro- 
secution of designs to be effected among a perverse 
multitude. 

It is probable that the men most distinguished for 
decision, have not in general possessed a large share of 
tenderness ; and it is easy to imagine, that the laws of 
our nature will, with great difficulty, allow the combi- 
nation of the refined sensibilities with a hard, never- 
shrinking, never-yielding firmness. Is it not almost of 
the essence of this temperament to be free from even 
the perception of such impressions as cause a mind, 
weak through susceptibility, to relax or waver ; just as 



108 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

the skin of the elephant, or the armour of the rhino- 
ceros, would be but indistinctly sensible to the applica- 
tion of a force by which a small animal, with a skin of 
thin and delicate texture, would be pierced or lacerated 
to death ? No doubt, this firmness consists partly in a 
commanding and repressive power over feelings, but it 
may consist fully as much in not having them. To be 
exquisitely alive to gentle impressions, and yet to be 
able to preserve, when the prosecution of a design 
requires it, an immovable heart amidst the most im- 
perious causes of subduing emotion, is perhaps not an 
impossible constitution of mind, but it must be the 
rarest endowment of humanity. 

If you take a view of the first rank of decisive men, 
you will observe that their faculties have been too 
much bent to arduous effort, their souls have been 
kept in too military an attitude, they have been begirt 
with too much iron, for the melting movements of the 
heart. Their whole being appears too much arrogated 
and occupied by the spirit of severe design, urging 
them toward some defined end, to be sufficiently at 
ease for the indolent complacency, the soft lassitude of 
gentle affections, which love to surrender themselves 
to the present felicities, forgetful of all " enterprises 
of great pith and moment." The man seems rigorously 
intent still on his own affairs, as he walks, or regales, 
or mingles with domestic society ; and appears to 
despise all the feelings that will not take rank with 
the grave labours and decisions of intellect, or coalesce 
with the unremitting passion which is his spring of 
action ; he values not feelings which he cannot employ 
either as weapons or as engines. He loves to be 
actuated by a passion so strong as to compel into 
exercise the utmost force of his being, and fix him in 
a tone, compared with which, the gentle affections, if 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER 109 

he had felt them, would be accounted tameness, and 
their exciting causes insipidity. 

Yet we cannot willingly admit that those gentle 
affections are totally incompatible with the most im- 
pregnable resolution and vigour ; nor can we help 
believing that such men as Timoleon, Alfred, and 
Gustavus Adolphus, must have been very fascinating 
associates in private and domestic life, whenever the 
urgency of their affairs would allow them to withdraw 
from the interests of statesmen and warriors, to indulge 
the affections of men : most fascinating, for, with 
relations or friends who had any right perceptions, an 
effect of the strong character would be recognised it 
a peculiar charm imparted by it to the gentle moods 
and seasons. The firmness and energy of the man 
whom nothing could subdue, would exalt the quality 
of the tenderness which softened him to recline. 

But it were much easier to enumerate a long train 
of ancient and modern examples of the vigour un- 
mitigated by the sensibility. Perhaps indeed these 
indomitable spirits have yielded sometimes to some 
species of love, as a mode of amusing their passions 
for an interval, till greater engagements have sum- 
moned them into their proper element ; when they 
have shown how little the sentiment was an element 
of the heart, by the ease with which they could re- 
linquish the temporary favourite. In other cases, 
where there have not been the selfish inducements, 
which this passion supplies, to the exhibition of some- 
thing like softness, and where they have been left to 
the trial of what they might feel of the sympathies of 
humanity in their simplicity, no rock on earth could 
be harder. 

The celebrated King of Prussia occurs to me, as & 
capital instance of the decisive character ; and there 



110 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

occurs to me, at the same time, one of the anecdotes 
related of him.* Intending to make, in the night, an 
important movement in his camp, which was in sight 
of the enemy, he gave orders that by eight o'clock all 
the lights in the camp should be put out, on pain of 
death. The moment that the time was passed, he 
walked out himself to see whether all were dark. He 
found a light in the tent of a Captain Zietern, which 
he entered just as the officer was folding up a letter. 
Zietern knew him, and instantly fell on his knees to 
entreat his mercy. The king asked to whom he had 
been writing ; he said it was a letter to his wife, which 
he had retained the candle these few minutes beyond 
the time in order to finish. The king coolly ordered 
him to rise, and write one line more, which he should 
dictate. This line was to inform his wife, without any 
explanation, that by such an hour the next day, he 
should be a dead man. The letter was then sealed, 
and despatched as it had been intended ; and, the next 
day, the captain was executed. I say nothing of the 
justice of the punishment itself; but this cool barbarity 
to the affection both of the officer and his wife, proved 
how little the decisive hero and reputed philosopher 
was capable of the tender affections, or of sympathizing 
with their pains. 

At the same time, it is proper to observe, that the 
case may easily occur, in which a man, sustaining a 

* The authenticity of this anecdote, which I read in some trifling 
fugitive publication many years since, has been questioned. Possibly 
enough it might be one of the many stories only half true which 
could not fail to go abroad concerning a man who made, in his day, 
so great a figure. But as it does not at all misrepresent the general 
character of his mind, since there are many incontrovertible facts 
proving against him as great a degree of cruelty as this anecdote 
would charge on him, the want of means to prove this one fact does 
not seem to impose any necessity for omitting the illustration. 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. Ill 

high responsibility, must be resolute to act in a manner 
which may make him appear to want the finer feelings. 
He may be placed under the necessity of doing what 
he knows will cause pain to persons of a character tc 
feel it severely. He may be obliged to resist affec- 
tionate wishes, expostulations, entreaties, and tears. 
Take this same instance. Suppose the wife of Zietern 
had come to supplicate for him, not only the remission 
of the punishment of death, but an exemption from any 
other severe punishment, which was perhaps justly due 
to the violation of such an order issued no doubt for 
important reasons; it had then probably been the duty 
and the virtue of the commander to deny the most 
interesting suppliant, and to resist the most pathetic 
appeals which could have been made to his feelings. 



LETTER VI. 

Various circumstances might be specified as adapted 
to confirm such a character as I have attempted to 
describe. I shall notice two or three. 

And first, opposition. The passions which inspirit 
men to resistance, and sustain them in it, such as 
anger, indignation, and resentment, are evidently far 
stronger than those which have reference to friendly 
objects ; and if any of these strong passions are fre- 
quently excited by opposition, they infuse a certain 
quality into the general temperament of the mind, 
which remains after the immediate excitement is past. 
They continually strengthen the principle of re-action ; 
they put the mind in the habitual array of defence and 
self-assertion, and often give it the aspect and the 
posture of a gladiator, when there appears no con- 



112 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

fronting combatant. When these passions are provoked 
in such a person as I describe, it is probable that each 
excitement is followed by a greater increase of this 
principle of re-action than in other men, because this 
result is so congenial with his naturally resolute dis- 
position. Let him be opposed then, throughout the 
prosecution of one of his designs, or in the general 
tenour of his actions, and this constant opposition 
would render him the service of an ally, by augmenting 
the resisting and defying power of his mind. An irre- 
solute spirit indeed might be quelled and subjugated 
by a formidable and persisting opposition ; but the 
strong wind which blows out a taper, exasperates a 
powerful fire (if there be fuel enough) to an indefinite 
intensity. It would be found, in fact, on a recollection 
of instances, that many of the persons most conspicuous 
for decision, have been exercised and forced to this 
high tone of spirit in having to make their way through 
opposition and contest ; a discipline under which they 
were wrought to both a prompt acuteness of faculty, 
and an inflexibility of temper, hardly attainable even 
by minds of great natural strength, if brought forward 
into the affairs of life under indulgent auspices, and in 
habits of easy and friendly coincidence with those 
around them. Often, however, it is granted, the 
firmness matured by such discipline is, in a man of 
virtue, accompanied with a Catonic severity, and in a 
mere man of the world is an unhumanized repulsive 
hardness. 

Desertion may be another cause conducive to the 
consolidation of this character. A kind mutually 
reclining dependence, is certainly for the happiness 
of human beings ; but this necessarily prevents the 
development of some great individual powers which 
would be forced into action by a state of abandonment. 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER, 113 

I lately happened to notice, with some surprise, an 
ivy, which, finding nothing to cling to beyond a 
certain point, had shot off into a bold elastic stem, 
with an air of as much independence as any branch 
of oak in the vicinity. So a human being thrown, 
whether by cruelty, justice, or accident, from all social 
support and kindness, if he have any vigour of spirit, 
and be not in the bodily debility of either childhood 
or age, will begin to act for himself with a resolution 
which will appear like a new faculty. And the most 
absolute inflexibility is likely to characterize the reso- 
lution of an individual who is obliged to deliberate 
without consultation, and execute without assistance. 
He will disdain to yield to beings who have rejected 
him, or to forego a particle of his designs or advantages 
in concession to the opinions or the will of all the 
world. Himself, his pursuits, and his interests, are 
emphatically his own. " The world is not his friend, 
nor the world's law;" and therefore he becomes re- 
gardless of every thing but its power, of which his 
policy carefully takes the measure, in order to ascer- 
tain his own means of action and impunity, as set 
against the world's means of annoyance, prevention, 
and retaliation. 

If this person have but little humanity or principle, 
he will become a misanthrope, or perhaps a villain, 
who will resemble a solitary wild beast of the night, 
which makes prey of every thing it can overpower, 
and cares for nothing but fire. If he be capable of 
grand conception and enterprise, he may, like Spar- 
tacus, make a daring attempt against the whole social 
order of the state where he has been oppressed. If he 
be of great humanity and principle, he may become one 
of the noblest of mankind, and display a generous 
virtue to which society had no claim, and which it is not 



114? ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

worthy to reward, if it should at last become inclined, 
No, he will say, give your rewards to another; as it 
has been no part of my object to gain them, they are 
not necessary to my satisfaction. I have done good, 
without expecting your gratitude, and without caring 
for your approbation. If conscience and my Creator 
had not been more auspicious than you, none of these 
virtues would ever have opened to the day. When 
I ought to have been an object of your compassion, I 
might have perished ; now, when you find I can serve 
your interests, you will affect to acknowledge me and 
reward me ; but I will abide by my destiny to verify 
the principle that virtue is its own reward. — In either 
case, virtuous or wicked, the man who has been com- 
pelled to do without assistance, will spurn interference. 

Common life would supply illustrations of the effect 
of desertion, in examples of some of the most resolute 
men having become such partly from being left friend- 
less in early life* The case has also sometimes 
happened, that a wife and mother, remarkable perhaps 
for gentleness and acquiescence before, has been com- 
pelled, after the death of her husband on whom she 
depended, and when she has met with nothing but 
neglect or unkindness from relations and those who 
had been accounted friends, to adopt a plan of her 
own, and has executed it with a resolution which has 
astonished even herself. 

One regrets that the signal examples, real or ficti- 
tious, that most readily present themselves, are still of 
the depraved order. I fancy myself to see Marius 
sitting on the ruins of Carthage, where no arch or 
column, that remained unshaken amidst the desolation, 
could present a stronger image of a firmness beyond 
the power of disaster to subdue. The rigid constancy 
which had before distinguished his character, would be 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 115 

aggravated by his finding himself thus an outcast 
from all human society ; and he would proudly shake 
off every sentiment that had ever for an instant 
checked his designs in the way of reminding him of 
social obligations. The lonely individual was placed 
in the alternative of becoming the victim or the anta- 
gonist of the power of the empire. While, with a 
spirit capable of confronting that power, he resolved, 
amidst those ruins, on a great experiment, he would 
enjoy a kind of sullen luxury in surveying the dreary 
situation into which he was driven, and recollecting 
the circumstances of his expulsion ; since they would 
seem to him to sanction an unlimited vengeance ; to 
present what had been his country as the pure legiti- 
mate prize for desperate achievement ; and to give 
him a proud consequence in being reduced to maintain 
singly a mortal quarrel against the bulk of mankind. 
He would exult that the very desolation of his con- 
dition rendered but the more complete the proof of his 
possessing a mind which no misfortunes could repress 
or intimidate, and that it kindled an animosity intense 
enough to force that mind from firm endurance into 
impetuous action. He would feel that he became 
stronger for enterprise, in proportion as his exile and 
destitution rendered him more inexorable; and the 
sentiment with which he quitted his solitude would 
be, — Rome expelled her patriot, let her receive her evil 
genius. 

The decision of Satan, in Paradise Lost, is repre- 
sented as consolidated by his reflections on his hopeless 
banishment from heaven, which oppress him with sad- 
ness for some moments, but he soon resumes his 
invincible spirit, and utters the impious but sublime 
sentiment, 

" What matter where, if/ be still the same." 
i 2 



L 16 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

You remember how this effect of desertion is repre- 
sented in Charles de Moor.* His father's supposed cruel 
rejection consigned him irretrievably to the career of 
atrocious enterprise, in which, notwithstanding the 
most interesting emotions of humanity and tenderness, 
he persisted with heroic determination till he considered 
his destiny as accomplished. 

Success tends considerably to reinforce this com- 
manding quality. It is true that a man possessing it 
in a high degree will not lose it by occasional failure ; 
for if the failure was caused by something entirely 
beyond the reach of human knowledge and ability, 
he will remember that fortitude is the virtue required 
in meeting unfavourable events which in no sense 
depended on him ; if by something which might have 
been known and prevented, he will feel that even the 
experience of failure completes his competence, by 
admonishing his prudence, and enlarging his under- 
standing. But as schemes and measures of action 
rightly adjusted to their proposed ends will generally 
attain them, continual failure would show something 
essentially wrong in a man's system, and destroy his 
confidence, or else expose it as mere absurdity or 
obstinacy. On the contrary, when a man has ascer- 
tained by experiment the justness of his calculations 
and the extent of his powers, when he has measured 
his force with various persons, when he has braved 
and vanquished difficulty, and partly seized the prize, 
he will carry forward the result of all this in an intrepid 
self-sufficiency for whatever may yet await him. 

In some men, whose lives have been spent in con- 
stant perils, continued success has produced a confidence 
beyond its rational effect, by inspiring a presumption 

* A wildly extravagant, certainly, "but most imposing and gigantic 
character in Schiller's tragedy, The Robbers. 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 117 

that the common laws of human affairs were, in their 
case, superseded by the decrees of a peculiar destiny, 
securing them from almost the possibility of disaster ; 
and this superstitious feeling, though it has displaced 
the unconquerable resolution from its rational basis, 
has often produced the most wonderful effects. This 
dictated Caesar's expression to the mariner who was 
terrified at the storm and billows, " What art thou 
afraid of? — thy vessel carries Caesar." The brave 
men in the times of the English Commonwealth were, 
some of them, indebted in a degree for their magna- 
nimity to this idea of a special destination, entertained 
as a religious sentiment. 

The wilfulness of an obstinate person is sometimes 
fortified by some single instance of remarkable success 
in his undertakings, which is promptly recalled in 
every case where his decisions are questioned or 
opposed, as a proof, or ground of just presumption, 
that he must in this instance too be right ; especially 
if that one success happened contrary to your pre- 
dictions. 

I shall only add, and without illustration, that the 
habit of associating with inferiors, among whom a man 
can always, and therefore does always, take the prece- 
dence and give the law, is conducive to a subordinate 
coarse kind of decision of character. You may see 
this exemplified any day in an ignorant country 'squire 
among his vassals ; especially if he wear the lordly 
uperaddition of Justice of the Peace. 

In viewing the characters and actions of the men 
who have possessed in imperial eminence the quality 
which I have attempted to describe, one cannot but 
wish it were possible to know how much of this mighty 
superiority was created by the circumstances in which 
they were placed ; but it is inevitable to believe that 



118 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

there was some vast intrinsic difference from ordinary 
men in the original constitutional structure of the 
mind. In observing lately a man who appeared too 
vacant almost to think of a purpose, too indifferent 
to resolve upon it, and too sluggish to execute it 
if he had resolved, I was distinctly struck with the 
idea of the distance between him and Marius, of whom 
I happened to have been reading ; and it was infinitely 
beyond my power to believe that any circumstances 
on earth, though ever so perfectly combined and 
adapted, would have produced in this man, if placed 
under their fullest influence from his childhood, any 
resemblance (unless perhaps the courage to enact a 
diminutive imitation in revenge and cruelty) of the 
formidable Roman. 

It is needless to discuss whether a person who is 
practically evinced, at the age of maturity, to want 
the stamina of this character, can, by any process, 
acquire it. Indeed such a person cannot have suffi- 
cient force of will to make the complete experiment. 
If there were the unconquerable will that would per- 
sist to seize all possible means, and apply them in order 
to attain, if I may so express it, this stronger mode of 
active existence, it would prove the possession already 
of a high degree of the character sought ; and if there 
is not this ivill, how then is the supposed attainment 
possible ? 

Yet though it is improbable that a very irresolute 
man can ever become a habitually decisive one, it 
should be observed, that since there are degrees of this 
powerful quality, and since the essential principles of 
it, when partially existing in those degrees, cannot be 
supposed subject to definite and ultimate limitation, 
like the dimension of the bodily stature, it might be 
possible to apply a discipline which should advance a 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 119 

man from the lowest degree to the next, from that to 
the third, and how much further — it will be worth his 
trying, if his first successful experiments have not cost 
more in the efforts for making the attainment, than 
he j udges likely to be repaid by any good he shall 
gain from its exercise. I have but a very imperfect 
conception of the discipline ; but will suggest a hint 
or two. 

In the first place, the indispensable necessity of 
a clear and comprehensive knowledge of the concerns 
before us, seems too obvious for remark ; and yet no 
man has been sufficiently sensible of it, till he has been 
placed in circumstances which forced him to act before 
he had time, or after he had made ineffectual efforts, 
to obtain the needful information and understanding. 
The pain of having brought things to an unfortunate 
issue, is hardly greater than that of proceeding in the 
conscious ignorance which continually threatens such 
an issue. While thus proceeding at hazard, under 
some compulsion which makes it impossible for him 
to remain in inaction, a man looks round for informa- 
tion as eagerly as a benighted wanderer would for the 
light of a human dwelling. He perhaps labours to 
recall what he thinks he once heard or read as relating 
to a similar situation, without dreaming at that time 
that such instruction could ever come to be of im- 
portance to him ; and is distressed to find his best 
recollection so indistinct as to be useless. He would 
give a considerable sum, if some particular book could 
be brought to him at the instant ; or a certain docu- 
ment which he believes to be in existence ; or the 
detail of a process, the terms of a prescription, or the 
model of an implement. He thinks how many people 
know, without its being of any present use to them, 
exactly what could be of such important service to 



120 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

him, if he could know it. In some cases, a line, a 
sentence, a monosyllable of affirming or denying, or a 
momentary sight of an object, would be inexpressibly 
valuable and welcome. And he resolves that if he 
can once happily escape from the present difficulty, 
he will apply himself day and night to obtain know- 
ledge, not concerning one particular matter only, but 
divers others, in provision against possible emergencies, 
rather than be so involved and harassed again. It 
might really be of service to have been occasionally 
forced to act under the disadvantage of conscious 
ignorance (if the affair was not so important as to allow 
the consequence to be very injurious), as an effectual 
lesson on the necessity of knowledge in order to deci- 
sion either of plan or execution. It must indeed be an 
extreme case that will compel a considerate man to act 
in the absence of knowledge ; yet he may sometimes 
be necessitated to proceed to action, when he is sensible 
his information is far from extending to the whole of 
the concern in which he is going to commit himself 
And in this case, he will feel no little uneasiness, while 
transacting that part of it in which his knowledge is 
competent, when he looks forward to the point where 
that knowledge terminates ; unless he be conscious of 
possessing an exceedingly prompt faculty of catching 
information at the moment that he wants it for use ; as 
Indians set out on a long journey with but a trifling stock 
of provision, because they are sure that their bows or 
guns will procure it by the way. It is one of the nicest 
points of wisdom to decide how much less than com- 
plete knowledge, in any question of practical interest, 
will warrant a man to venture on an undertaking, in 
the presumption that the deficiency will be supplied in 
time to prevent either perplexity or disaster. 

A thousand familiar instances show the effect of 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 121 

complete knowledge on determination. An artisan may- 
be said to be decisive as to the mode of working a piece 
of iron or wood, because he is certain of the proper 
process and the effect. A man perfectly acquainted 
with the intricate paths of a woodland district, takes 
the right one without a moment's hesitation ; while a 
stranger, who has only some very vague information, is 
lost in perplexity. It is easy to imagine what a number 
of circumstances may occur in the course of a life, 
or even of a year, in which a man cannot thus readily 
determine, and thus confidently proceed without a 
compass and an exactness of knowledge which few 
persons have application enough to acquire. And it 
would be frightful to know to what extent human 
interests are committed to the direction of ignorance. 
What a consolatory doctrine is that of a particular 
Providence ! 

In connexion with the necessity of knowledge, I 
would suggest the importance of cultivating, with the 
utmost industry, a conclusive manner of thinking. In 
the first place, let the general course of thinking 
partake of the nature of reasoning ; and let it be 
remembered that this name does not belong to a series 
of thoughts and fancies which follow one another 
without deduction or dependence, and which can there- 
fore no more bring a subject to a proper issue, than a 
number of separate links will answer the mechanical 
purpose of a chain. The conclusion which terminates 
such a series, does not deserve the name of result or 
conclusion, since it has little more than a casual con- 
nexion with what went before ; the conclusion might as 
properly have taken place at an earlier point of the 
train, or have been deferred till that train had been 
extended much further. Instead of having been busily 
employed In this kind of thinking, for perhaps many 



122 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

hours, a man might possibly as well have been sleeping 
all the time ; since the single thought which is now to 
determine his conduct, might have happened to be the 
first thought that occurred to him on awaking. It only 
happens to occur to him now ; it does not follow from 
what he has been thinking these hours ; at least, he 
cannot prove that some other thought might not just 
as appropriately have come in its place at the end, and 
to make an end, of this long series. It is easy to see 
how feeble that determination is likely to be, which is 
formed on so narrow a ground as the last accidental 
idea that comes into the mind, or on so loose a ground 
as this crude uncombined assemblage of ideas. Indeed 
it is difficult to form a determination at all on such 
slight ground. A man delays, and waits for some more 
satisfactory thought to occur to him ; and perhaps he 
has not waited long, before an idea arises in his mind 
of a quite contrary tendency to the last. As this addi- 
tional idea is not, more than that whici preceded it, 
the result of any process of reasoning, nor brings with 
it any arguments, it may be expected to give place soon 
to another, and still another ; and they are all in suc- 
cession of equal authority, that is properly of none. 
If at last an idea occurs to him which seems of consi- 
derable authority, he may here make a stand, and adopt 
his resolution, with firmness, as he thinks, and com- 
mence the execution. But still, if he cannot see 
whence the principle which has determined him derives 
its authority — on what it holds for that authority — his 
resolution is likely to prove treacherous and evanescent 
in any serious trial. A principle so little verified by 
sound reasoning, is not terra firma for a man to trust 
himself upon ; it is only as a slight incrustation on a 
yielding element ; it is like the sand compacted into a 
thin surface on the lake Serbonis, which broke awav 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 123 

under the unfortunate army which had begun to advance 
on it, mistaking it for solid ground. — These remarks 
may seem to refer only to a single instance of delibe- 
ration ; but they are equally applicable to all the deli- 
berations and undertakings of a man's life ; the same 
connected manner of thinking, which is so necessary to 
give firmness of determination and of conduct in a 
particular instance, will, if habitual, greatly contribute 
to form a decisive character. 

Not only should thinking be thus reduced, by a strong 
and patient discipline, to a train or process, in which all 
the parts at once depend upon and support one another, 
but also this train should be followed on to a full con- 
clusion. It should be held as a law generally in force, 
that the question must be disposed of before it is let 
alone. The mind may carry on this accurate process 
to some length, and then stop through indolence, or 
start away through levity ; but it can never possess that 
rational confidence in its opinions which is requisite to 
the character in question, till it is conscious of acquiring 
them from an exercise of thought continued on to its 
result. The habit of thinking thus completely is indis- 
pensable to the general character of decision ; and in 
any particular instance, it is found that short pieces of 
courses of reasoning, though correct as far as they go, 
are inadequate to make a man master of the immediate 
concern. They are besides of little value for aid to 
future thinking ; because from being left thus incom- 
plete they are but slightly retained by the mind, and 
soon sink away ; in the same manner as the walls of a 
structure left unfinished speedily moulder. 

After these remarks, I should take occasion to observe, 
that a vigorous exercise of thought may sometimes for 
a while seem to increase the difficulty of decision, by 
discovering a great number of unthought-of reasons 



124? ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

for a measure and against it, so that the most discr* 
minating mind ruay, during a short space, find itself in 
the state of the magnetic needle under the equator. 
But no case in the world can really have a perfect 
equality of opposite reasons ; nor will it long appear to 
have it, in the estimate of a clear and well-disciplined 
intellect, which after some time will ascertain, though 
the difference is small, which side of the question has 
ten, and which has but nine. At any rate this is the 
mind to come nearest in the approximation. 

Another thing that would powerfully assist toward 
complete decision, both in the particular instance, 
and in the general spirit of the character, is for a 
man to place himself in a situation analogous to that 
in which Caesar placed his soldiers, when he burnt 
the ships which brought them to land. If his judg- 
ment is really decided, let him commit himself irre- 
trievably, by doing something which shall oblige him 
to do more, which shall lay on him the necessity of 
doing all. If a man resolves as a general intention to 
be a philanthropist, I would say to him, Form some 
actual plan of philanthropy, and begin the execution 
of it to-morrow, (if I may not say to-day >) so explicitly, 
that you cannot relinquish it without becoming degraded 
even in your own estimation. If a man would be a hero, 
let him, if it be possible to find a good cause in arms, 
go presently to the camp. If a man is desirous of a 
travelling adventure through distant countries, and de- 
liberately approves both his purpose and his scheme, let 
him actually prepare to set off. Let him not still dwell, 
in imagination, on mountains, rivers, and temples ; but 
give directions about his remittances, his personal equip- 
ments, or the carriage, or the vessel, in which he is to go, 
Ledyard surprised the official person who asked him how 
soon he could be ready to set off for the interior 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 126 

of Africa, by replying promptly and firmly, (i To- 
morrow." 

Again, it is highly conducive to a manly firmness, 
that the interests in which it is exerted should be of a 
dignified order, so as to give the passions an ample 
scope, and a noble object. The degradation they suffer 
in being devoted to mean and trivial pursuits, often 
perceived to be such in spite of every fallacy of the 
imagination, would in general, I should think, also de- 
bilitate their energy, and therefore preclude strength 
of character, to which nothing can be more adverse, 
than to have the fire of the passions damped by the 
mortification of feeling contempt for the object, as often 
as its meanness is betrayed by failure of the delusion 
which invests it. 

And finally, I would repeat that one should think a 
man's own conscientious approbation of his conduct 
must be of vast importance to his decision in the outset, 
and his persevering constancy ; and I would attribute 
it to defect of memory that a greater proportion of the 
examples, introduced for illustration in this essay, do 
not exhibit goodness in union with the moral and intel- 
lectual power so conspicuous in the quality described. 
Certainly a bright constellation of such examples might 
be displayed ; yet it is the mortifying truth that much 
the greater number of men pre-eminent for decision, 
have been such as could not have their own serious 
approbation, except through an utter perversion of 
judgment or abolition of conscience. And it is melan- 
choly to contemplate beings represented in our imagi- 
nation as of adequate power, (when they possessed great 
external means to give effect to the force of their minds,) 
for the grandest utility, for vindicating each good cause 
which has languished in a world adverse to all goodness, 
and for intimidating the collective vices of a nation or 



126 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

an age — to contemplate such beings as becoming them, 
selves the mighty exemplars, giants, and champions of 
those vices ; and it is fearful to follow them in thought, 
from this region, of which not all the powers and diffi- 
culties and inhabitants together could have subdued 
their adamantine resolution, to the Supreme Tribunal 
where that resolution must tremble and melt awav. 



ESSAY III. 

ON THE APPLICATION OF THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 



LETTER I. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

A thoughtful judge of sentiments, books, and men, 
will often find reason to regret that the language of 
censure is so easy and so undefined. It costs no 
labour, and needs no intellect, to pronounce the words, 
foolish, stupid, dull, odious, absurd, ridiculous. The 
weakest or most uncultivated mind may therefore 
gratify its vanity, laziness, and malice, all at once, by 
a prompt application of vague condemnatory words, 
where a wise and liberal man would not feel himself 
warranted to pronounce without the most deliberate 
consideration, and where such consideration might 
perhaps result in applause. Thus excellent perfor- 
mances, in the department of thinking or of action, 
might be consigned to contempt, if there were no 
better judges, on the authority of those who could 
not so much as understand them. A man who wishes 
some decency and sense to prevail in the circulation 
of opinions, will do well, when he hears these decisions 
of ignorant arrogance, to call for a precise explication of 
the manner in which the terms of the verdict apply to 
the subject. 



128 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

There is a competent number of words for this use 
of cheap censure ; but though a man doubts not he is 
giving a tolerable proof of sagacity in the confident 
readiness to condemn, even with this impotence of 
language, he may however have an irksome conscious- 
ness that there is wanting to him a certain dexterity 
of biting expression that would do more mischief than 
the words dull, stupid, and ridiculous, which he is re- 
peating many times to compensate for the incapacity 
of hitting off the right thing at once. These vague 
epithets describe nothing, discriminate nothing ; they 
express no species, are as applicable to ten thousand 
things as to this one, and he has before employed them 
on a numberless diversity of subjects. He has a 
fretted feeling of this their inefficiency; and can 
perceive that censure or contempt has the smartest 
effect, when its expressions have a special cast which 
fits them more peculiarly to the present subject than 
to another ; and he is therefore secretly dissatisfied in 
uttering the expressions which say " about it and about 
it," but do not say the thing itself; which showing his 
good will betray his deficient power. He wants words 
and phrases which w r ould make the edge of his clumsy 
meaning fall just where it ought. Yes, he wants words; 
for his meaning is sharp, he knows, if only the words 
would come. 

Discriminative censure must be conveyed, either by 
a marked expression of thought in a sentence, or by an 
epithet or other term so specifically appropriate, that 
the single word is sufficient to fix the condemnation by 
the mere precision with which it describes. But as the 
censurer perhaps cannot succeed in either of these ways, 
he is willing to seek some other resource. And he may 
often find it in cant terms, which have a more spiteful 
force, and seem to have more particularity of meaning, 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC 129 

than plain common words, while yet needing no shrewd- 
ness for their application. Each of these is supposed 
to denominate some one class or character of scorned 
or reprobated things, but so little defines it, that dull 
malice may venture to assign to the class any thing 
which it would desire to throw under the odium of the 
denomination. Such words serve for a mode of collective 
execution, somewhat like the vessels which, in a season 
of outrage in a neighbouring country, received a pro- 
miscuous crowd of reputed criminals, of unexamined 
and dubious similarity, and were then sunk in the flood. 
You cannot wonder that such compendious words of 
decision, which can give quick vent to crude impatient 
censure, emit plenty of antipathy in a few syllables, and 
save the condemner the difficulty of telling exactly 
what he wants to mean, should have had an extensive 
circulation. 

Puritan was, doubtless, welcomed as a term most 
luckily invented or revived, when it began to be applied 
in contempt to a class of men of whom the world was 
not worthy. Its odd peculiarity gave it almost such an 
advantage as that of a proper name among the lumber 
of common words by which they were described and 
reviled; while yet it meant any thing, every thing, 
which the vain world disliked in the devout and con- 
scientious character. To the more sluggish it saved, 
and to the more loquacious it relieved, the labour of 
endlessly repeating " demure rogues," " sanctimonious 
pretenders," " formal hypocrites." 

The abusive faculty of this word has long been 
extinct, and left it to become a grave and almost vene- 
rable term in history ; but some word of a similar cast 
was indispensably necessary to the vulgar of both kinds. 
The vain and malignant spirit which had decried the 
elevated piety of the Puritans, sought about (as Milton 

K 



130 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

describes the wicked one in Paradise) for some con- 
venient form in which it might again come forth to hiss 
at zealous Christianity ; and in another lucky moment 
fell on the term Methodist. If there is no sense in the 
word, as now applied, there seems however to be a 
great deal of aptitude and execution. It has the advan- 
tage of being comprehensive as a general denomination, 
and yet opprobrious as a special badge, for every thing 
that ignorance and folly may mistake for fanaticism, 
or that malice may wilfully assign to it. Whenever a 
formalist feels it his duty to sneer at those operations 
of religion on the passions, by which he has never been 
disturbed, he has only to call them methodistical ; and 
though the word be both so trite and so vague, he feels 
as if he had uttered a good pungent thing. There is a 
satiric smartness in the word, though there be none in 
the man. In default of keen faculty in the mind, it is 
delightful thus to find something that will do as well, 
ready bottled up in odd terms. It is not less convenient 
to a profligate, or a coxcomb, whose propriety of cha- 
racter is to be supported by laughing indiscriminately 
at religion in every form ; the one, to evince that his 
courage is not sapped by conscience, the other, to make 
the best advantage of his instinct of catching at impiety 
as a compensative substitute for sense. The word 
Methodism so readily sets aside all religion as super- 
stitious folly, that they pronounce it with an air as if 
no more needed to be said. Such terms have a pleasant 
facility of throwing away the matter in question to 
scorn, without any trouble of making a definite in- 
telligible charge of extravagance or delusion, and 
attempting to prove it. 

In politics, Jacobinism has, of late years, been the 
brand by which all sentiments referring to the principles 
of liberty, in a way to censure the measures of the 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 231 

ascendent party in the State, have been sentenced to 
execration. What a quantity of noisy zeal would have 
been quashed in dead silence, if it had been possible to 
enforce the substitution of statements and definitions 
for this vulgar, senseless, but most efficacious term of 
reproach ! What a number of persons have vented the 
superabundance of their loyalty, or their rancour, by 
means of this and two or three similar words, who, if by 
some sudden lapse of memory they had lost these two or 
three words, and a few names of persons, would have 
looked round with an idiotic vacancy, totally at a loss 
what was the subject of their anger or their approbation. 
One may here catch a glimpse of the policy of men of 
a superior class, in employing these terms as much as the 
vulgar, in order to keep them in active currency. If 
a rude populace, whose understandings they despise, 
and do not wish to improve, could not be excited and 
kept up to loyal animosity, but by means of a clear 
comprehension of what they were to oppose, and of the 
reasons why, a political party would have but feeble 
hold on popular zeal, and might vociferate, and intrigue, 
and fret itself to nothing. But if a single word, devised 
in hatred and defamation of political liberty, can be 
made the symbol of all that is absurd and execrable, 
so that the very sound of it shall irritate the passions 
of this ignorant and scorned multitude, as dogs have 
been taught to bark at the name of a neighbouring 
tyrant, it is a commodious expedient for rendering these, 
passions available and subservient to the interests of 
those who despise, while they cajole, their duped auxi- 
liaries. The popular passions are the imps and demons 
of the political conjuror, and he can raise them, as other 
conjurors affect to do theirs, by terms of gibberish.* 

* It is curious that, within no long time after this was first printed, 
the terms jacobin and jacobinism became completely worn out ami 

k2 



132 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

The epithet romantic has obviously no similarity to 
these words in its coinage, but it is considerably like 
them in the mode and effect of its application. For 
having partly quitted the rank of plain epithets, it has 
become a convenient exploding word, of more special 
deriding significance than the other words of its order, 
such as wild, extravagant, visionary. It is a standard 
expression of contemptuous despatch, which you have 
often heard pronounced with a very self-complacent 
air, that said, " How much wiser I am than some 
people," by the indolent and inanimate on what they 
would not acknowledge practicable, by the apes of 
prudence on what they accounted foolishly adventurous, 
and by the slaves of custom on what startled them as 
singular. The class of absurdities which it denominates is 
left so undefined, that all the views and sentiments which 
a narrow cold mind could not like or understand in an 
ample and fervid one, might be referred thither; and 
yet the word seems, or assumes, to discriminate their 
character so conclusively as to put them out of argu- 
ment. With this cast of sapience and vacancy of sense, it 
is allowed to depreciate without being acountable ; it has 
the license of a parrot, to call names without being taxed 
with insolence. And when any sentiments are decisively 
stigmatized with this denomination, it would require con- 
siderable courage to attempt their rescue and defence ; 
since the imputation which the epithet fixes on them will 
pass upon the advocate ; and he may expect to be him- 
self enrolled among the heroes of whom Don Quixote is 
from time immemorial the commander-in-chief. At least 
he may be assigned to that class which occupies a du- 
bious frontier space between the rational and the insane. 

obsolete. It is not worth a guess how long the term rcJical, to which 
the duty of the defunct ones was transferred, may continue of any 
service against the doctrines and persons of reformists. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 133 

If, however, the suggestions and sketches which I 
had endeavoured to exhibit as interesting and practi- 
cable, were attempted to be turned into vanity and 
" thin air " by the enunciation of this epithet, I would 
say, Pray now what do you mean by romantic ? Have 
you, as you pronounce it, any precise conception in 
your mind, which you can give in some other words, 
and then distinctly fix the charge ? Or is this a word, 
which because it is often used in some such way as 
you now use it, may be left to tell its own meaning 
better than the speaker knows how to explain it ? Or 
perhaps you mean, that the notions which I am ex- 
pressing recall to your mind, as kindred ideas, the fan- 
tastic images of Romance ; and that you cannot help 
thinking of enchanted castles, encounters with giants, 
solemn exorcisms, fortunate surprises, knights and 
wizards. You cannot exactly distinguish what the 
absurdity in my notions is, but you fancy what it is 
like. You therefore condemn it, not by defining its 
nature and exposing its irrationality, but by applying 
an epithet which arbitrarily assigns it to a class of 
things of which the absurdity stands notorious and un- 
questioned : for evidently the epithet should signify a re- 
semblance to what is the prominent folly in the works of 
romance. Well then, take advantage of this resemblance, 
to bring your censure into something of a definite form. 
Delineate precisely the chief features of the absurdity 
of the works of romance, and then show how the same 
characteristics are flagrant on my notions or schemes. 
I will then renounce at once all my visionary follies, 
and be henceforward at least a very sober, if I cannot 
be a very rational man. 

The great general characteristic of those works has 
been the ascendency of imagination over judgment. 
And the description is correct as applied to the books 



134- ON THE APPLICATION OF 

however well endowed with intellect the authors of 
them might be. If they chose, for their own and 
others' amusement, to dismiss a sound judgment awhile 
from its office, to stimulate their imagination to the 
wildest extravagances, and to depicture the fantastic 
career in writing, the book might be partly the same 
thing as if produced by a mind in which sound judg- 
ment had no place ; it would exhibit imagination 
actually ascendent by the writer's voluntary indulgence, 
though not necessarily so by the constitution of his 
mind. It was a different case, if a writer kept his 
judgment active amidst these very extravagances, with 
the intention of shaping and directing them to some 
particular end, of satire or sober truth. But however, 
the romances of the ages of chivalry and the preceding 
times were composed under neither of these intellectual 
conditions. They were not the productions either of 
men who, possessing a sound judgment, chose formally 
to suspend its exercise, in order to riot awhile in scenes 
of extravagant fancy, only keeping that judgment so far 
awake as to retain a continual consciousness in what 
degree they were extravagant ; or of men designing to 
give effect to truth or malice under the diguise of a fan- 
tastic exhibition. It is evident that the authors were 
under the real ascendency of imagination ; so that, though 
they must at times have been conscious of committing 
great excesses, yet they were on the whole wonderfully 
little sensible of the enormous extravagance of their 
fictions. They could drive on their career through 
monstrous absurdities of description and narration, 
without, apparently, any check from a sense of incon- 
sistency, improbability, or impossibility ; and with an 
air as if they really reckoned on being taken for the 
veritable describers of something that could exist or 
happen within the mundane system And the general 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 135 

state of intellect of the age in which they lived seems 
to have been well fitted to allow them the utmost 
license. The irrationality of the romancers, and of the 
age, provoked the observing and powerful mind of 
Cervantes to expose it by means of a parallel and still 
more extravagant representation of the prevalence of 
imagination over reason, drawn in a ludicrous form, by 
which he rendered the folly palpable even to the sense 
of that age. From that time the delirium abated ; the 
works which inspirited its ravings have been blown away 
beyond the knowledge and curiosity of any but biblio- 
maniacs ; and the fabrication of such is gone among the 
lost branches of manufacturing art. 

Yet romance was in some form to be retained, as in- 
dispensable to the craving of the human mind for some- 
thing more vivid, more elated, more wonderful, than the 
plain realities of life ; as a kind of mental balloon, for 
mounting into the air from the ground of ordinary ex- 
perience. To afford this extra-rational kind of luxury, 
it was requisite that the fictions should still partake, in 
a limited degree, of the quality of the earlier romance. 
The writers were not to be the dupes of wild fancy ; 
they were not to feign marvels in such a manner as if 
they knew no better ; they were not wholly to lose sight 
of the actual system of things, but to keep within some 
measures of relation and proportion to it ; and yet they 
were required to disregard the strict laws of verisimi- 
litude in shaping their inventions, and to magnify and 
diversify them with an indulgence of fancy very con- 
siderably beyond the bounds of probability. Without 
this their fictions would have lost what was regarded 
as the essential quality of romance. 

If, therefore, the epithet Romantic, as now employed 
for description and censure of character, sentiments, 
and schemes, is to be understood as expressive of the 



136 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

quality which is characteristic of that class of fictions, 
it imputes, in substance, a great excess of imagination 
in proportion to judgment ; and it imputes, in parti- 
culars, such errors as naturally result from that excess. 
— It may be worth while to look for some of the prac- 
tical exemplifications of this unfortunate disproportion 
between these two powers of the mind. 

It should first be noted that a defective judgment is 
not necessarily accompanied by any thing in the least 
romantic in disposition, since the imagination may be as 
inert as the judgment is weak ; and this double and 
equal deficiency produces mere dulness. But it is 
obvious that a weak judgment may be associated with 
an active strength of that faculty which is of such 
lively power even in childhood, in dreams, and in the 
state of insanity. 

Again, there may be an intellect not positively feeble 
(supposing it estimated separately from the other power) 
yet practically reduced to debility by a disproportionate 
imagination, which continually invades its sphere, and 
takes every thing out of its hands. And then the case 
is made worse by the unfortunate circumstance, that 
the exercise of the faculty which should be repressed, 
is incomparably more easy and delightful, than of that 
which should be promoted. Indeed the term exercise 
is hardiy applicable to the activity of a faculty which 
can be active without effort, which is so far from needing 
to be stimulated to its works of magic, that it often 
scorns the most serious injunctions to forbear. It is 
not exercise, but indulgence; and even minds possessing 
much of the power of understanding, may be little 
disposed to undergo the labour of it, when amidst the 
ease of the deepest indolence they can revel in the 
activity of a more animating employment. Imagination 
may be indulged till it usurp an entire ascendency over 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 137 

the mind, and then every subject presented to that 
mind will be taken under the action of imagination, 
instead of understanding; imagination will throw its 
colours where the intellectual faculty ought to draw its 
lines ; will accumulate metaphors where reason ought 
to deduce arguments ; images will take the place of 
thoughts, and scenes of disquisitions. The whole mind 
may become at length something like a hemisphere 
of cloud-scenery, filled with an ever-moving train of 
changing melting forms, of every colour, mingled with 
rainbows, meteors, and an occasional gleam of pure sun- 
light, all vanishing away, the mental like this natural 
imagery, when its hour is up, without leaving any thing 
behind but the wish to recover the vision. And yet, 
the while, this series of visions may be mistaken for 
operations of thought, and each cloudy image be ad- 
mitted in the place of a proposition or a reason ; or it 
may even be mistaken for something sublimer than 
thinking. The influence of this habit of dwelling on 
the beautiful fallacious forms of imagination, will ac- 
company the mind into the most serious speculations, 
or rather musings, on the real world, and what is to be 
done in it, and expected ; as the image from looking at 
any dazzling object still appears before the eye wherever 
it turns. The vulgar materials that constitute the 
actual economy of the world, will rise up to sight in 
fictitious forms, which the mind cannot disenchant into 
plain reality ; which indeed it may hardly suspect of 
being illusory; and would not be very desirous to 
reduce to the proof if it did. For such a mind is not 
disposed to examine, with any severity of inspection, 
the real condition of things. It is content with ig- 
norance, because environed with something far more 
delicious than such knowledge, in the paradise which 
imagination creates. In that paradise it walks delighted, 



138 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

till some imperious circumstance of real life call it 
thence, and gladly escapes thither again as soon as the 
cause of the avocation can be got rid of. There, every 
thing is beautiful and noble as could be desired to form 
the residence of angels. If a tenth part of the felicities 
that have been enjoyed, the great actions that have 
been performed, the beneficent institutions that have 
been established, and the beautiful objects that have 
been seen, in that happy region, could have been im- 
ported into this terrestrial place — what a delightful 
thing, my dear friend, it would have been each morning 
to awake and look on such a world once more. 

It is not strange that a faculty, of which the exercise 
is so easy and bewitching, and the scope infinite, should 
obtain a predominance over judgment, especially in 
young persons, and in such as may have been brought 
up, like Rasselas and his companions, in great seclusion 
from the sight and experience of the world. Indeed, 
a considerable vigour of imagination, though it be at 
the expense of a frequent predominance over juvenile 
understanding, seems necessary, in early life, to cause 
a generous expansion of the passions, by giving the 
most lively aspect to the objects which must attract 
them in order to draw forth into activity the faculties 
of our nature, It may also contribute to prepare the 
mind for the exercise of that faith which converses 
with things unseen, but converses with them through 
the medium of those ideal forms in which imagination 
presents them, and in which only a strong imagination 
can present them impressively.* And I should deem 
it the indication of a character not destined to excel in 

* The Divine Being is the only one of these objects which a 
Christian would wish it possible to contemplate without the aid of 
imagination ; and every reflective man has felt how difficult it is to 
apprehend even this Object without the intervention of an image. In 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 139 

the liberal, the energetic, or the devout qualities, if I 
observed in the youthful age a close confinement of 
thought to bare truth and minute accuracy, with an 
entire aversion to the splendours, amplifications, and 
excursions of fancy. The opinion is warranted by 
instances of persons so distinguished in youth, who 
have become subsequently very intelligent indeed, in 
a certain way, but dry, cold, precise, devoted to detail, 
and incapable of being carried away one moment by 
any inspiration of the beautiful or the sublime. They 
seem to have only the bare intellectual mechanism of 
the human mind, without the addition of what is to 
give it life and sentiment. They give one an impression 
analogous to that of the leafless trees observed in 
winter, admirable for the distinct exhibition of their 
branches and minute ramifications so clearly defined 
on the sky, but destitute of all the green soft luxury 
of foliage which is requisite to make a perfect tree. 
And the affections which may exist in such minds seem 
to have a bleak abode, somewhat like those bare deserted 
nests which you have often seen in such trees. 

If, indeed, the signs of this exclusive understanding 
indicated also such an extraordinary vigour of the 
faculty, as to promise a very great mathematician or 
metaphysician, one would perhaps be content to forego 
some of the properties which form a complete mind, 
for the sake of this pre-eminence of one of its endow- 
ments ; even though the person were to be so defective 
in sentiment and fancy, that, as the story goes of an 
eminent mathematician, he could read through a most 
animated and splendid epic poem, and on being asked 

thinking of the transactions and personages of history, the final 
events of time foretold by prophecy, the state of good men in another 
world, the superior ranks of intelligent agents, &c. he has often had 
occasion to wish his imagination much more vivid. 



140 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

what he thought of it, gravely reply, " What does it 
prove?" But the want of imagination is never an 
evidence, and perhaps but rarely a concomitant, of 
superior understanding. 

Imagination may be allowed the ascendency in early 
youth ; the case should be reversed in mature life ; 
and if it is not, a man may consider his mind either as 
not the most happily constructed, or as unwisely disci- 
plined. The latter indeed is probably true in every 
such instance 



LETTER II. 

The ascendency of imagination operates in various 
modes ; I will endeavour to distinguish those which 
may justly be called romantic. 

The extravagance of imagination in romance has 
very much consisted in the display of a destiny and 
course of life totally unlike the common condition of 
mankind. And you may have observed in living indi- 
viduals, that one of the effects sometimes produced by 
the predominance of this faculty is, a persuasion in a 
person's own mind that he is born to some peculiar and 
extraordinary destiny, while yet there are no extra- 
ordinary indications in the person or his circumstances. 
There was something rational in the early presentiment 
which some distinguished men have entertained of 
their future career. When a celebrated general of 
the present times exclaimed, after performing the 
common military exercise, as one of a company of 
juvenile volunteers, " I shall be a commander-in-chief,"* 
a sagacious observer of the signs of talents yet but 
partially developed, might have thought it indeed a 

• Related of Moreau. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 1 4r 1 

rather sanguine but probably not a quite absurd antici- 
pation. An elder and intelligent associate of Milton's 
youth might without much difficulty have believed 
himself listening to an oracle, when a spirit which 
was shaping in such gigantic proportions avowed to 
him a confidence, of being destined to produce a 
work which should distinguish the nation and the age. 
The opening of uncommon faculties may be sometimes 
inspirited by such anticipations ; which the young 
genius may be allowed to express, perhaps as a stimulus 
encouraged to indulge. But in most instances these 
magnificent presumptions form, in the observer's eye, 
a ludicrous contrast with the situation and apparent 
abilities of the person who entertains them. And in 
the event, how few such anticipations have been proved 
the genuine promptings of an extraordinary mind. 

The visionary presumption of a peculiar destiny is 
entertained in more forms than that which implies a 
confidence of possessing uncommon talent. It is often 
the flattering self-assurance simply of a life of singular 
felicity. The captive of fancy fondly imagines his 
prospect of life as a delicious vale, where from each 
side every stream of pleasure is to flow down to his 
feet ; and while it cannot but be seen that innumerable 
evils do harass other human beings, some mighty spell 
is to protect him against them all. He takes no de- 
liberate account of what is inevitable in the lot of 
humanity, of the sober probabilities of his own situation, 
or of any principles in the constitution of his mind 
which are perhaps very exactly calculated to frustrate 
the anticipation and the scheme of happiness. 

If this excessive imagination is combined with ten- 
dencies to affection, it makes a person sentimentally 
romantic. With a great, and what might, in a mind 
of finer elements, be a just contempt of the ordinary 



14-2 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

rate of attachments, both in friendship and love, he 
indulges a most assured confidence that his peculiar 
lot is to realize all the wonders of generous, virtuous, 
noble, unalienable friendship, or of enraptured, unin- 
terrupted, and unextinguishable love, that the inebria- 
tion of fiction and poetry ever sung ; while perhaps a 
shrewd indifferent observer can descry nothing in the 
horoscope, or the character, or the actual circumstances 
of the man, or in the qualities of the human creatures 
that he adores, or in the nature of his devotion, to 
promise an elevation or permanence of felicity beyond 
the destiny of common mortals. 

If a passion for variety and novelty accompanies 
this extravagant imagination, it will exclude from its 
bold sketches of future life every thing like confined 
regularity, and common plodding occupations. It will 
suggest that / was born for an adventurer, whose story 
will one day be a wonder of the world. Perhaps I am 
to be an universal traveller ; and there is not on the 
globe a grand city, or ruin, or volcano, or cataract, but 
I must see it. Debility of constitution, deficiency of 
means, innumerable perils, unknown languages, op- 
pressive toils, extinguished curiosity, worn out fortitude, 
failing health, and the shortness of life, are very possibly 
all left out of the account. 

If there is in the disposition a love of what is called 
glory, and an idolatry of those capacious and intrepid 
spirits one of which has often, in a portentous crisis, 
decided, by an admirable series of exertions, or by one 
grand exploit of intelligence and valour, the destiny of 
armies and of empires, a predominant imagination 
may be led to revel amidst the splendours of military 
achievement, and to flatter the man that he too is to be 
a hero, a great commander. 

When a mind under this influence recurs to prece- 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 143 

dents as a foundation and a warrant of its expectations, 
they are never the usual, but always the extraordinary 
examples, that are contemplated. An observer of the 
ordinary instances of friendship is perhaps heard to 
assert that the sentiment is sufficiently languid in 
general to admit of an almost unqualified self-interest, 
of absence without pain, and of ultimate indifference. 
Well, so let it be ; Damon and Pythias were friends of 
a different order, and our friendship is to be like theirs. 
Or if the subject of musing and hope is the union in 
which love commonly results, it may be true and ob- 
vious enough that the generality of instances would 
not seem to tell of more than a mediocrity of happiness 
in this relation ; but a visionary person does not live 
within the same world with these examples. The few 
instances which have been recorded of tender and 
never-dying enthusiasm, together with the numerous 
ones which romance and poetry have created, form the 
class to which he belongs, and from whose enchant- 
ing history, excepting their misfortunes, he reasons 
to his own future experience. So too the man, whose 
fancy anticipates political or martial distinction, allows 
his thoughts to revert continually to those names which 
a rare conjunction of talents and circumstances has 
elevated into fame ; forgetting that many thousands of 
men of great ability have died in at least comparative 
obscurity, for want of situations in which to display 
themselves ; and never suspecting it possible that his own 
abilities are not competent to any thing great, if some 
extraordinary event were just now to place him in the 
most opportune concurrence of circumstances. That 
there has been one very signal man to a million, more 
avails to the presumption that he shall be a signal man, 
than there having been a million to one signal man, in- 
fers a probability of his remaining one of the multitude. 



14-4 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

You will generally observe, that persons thus self- 
appointed, of either sex, to be exceptions to the usual 
lot of humanity, endeavour at 'a kind of consistency of 
character, by a great aversion to the common modes of 
action and language, and a habitual affectation of some- 
thing extraordinary. They will perhaps disdain regular 
hours, punctuality to engagements, usual dresses, a 
homely diction, and common forms of transacting 
business ; this you are to regard as the impulse of a 
spirit whose high vocation authorizes it to renounce all 
signs of relation to vulgar minds. 

The epithet romantic then may be justly applied to 
those presumptions (if entertained after the childish or 
very youthful age) of a peculiarly happy or important 
destiny in life, which are not clearly founded on certain 
palpable distinctions of character or situation, or which 
greatly exceed the sober prognostics afforded by those 
distinctions. — It should be observed here that wishes 
merely do not constitute a character romantic. A person 
may sometimes let his mind wander into vain wishes for 
all the fine things on earth, and yet be too sober to 
expect any of them. In this case how r ever he will 
often check and reproach himself for the folly of 
indulging in such mental dissoluteness. 

The absurdity of such anticipations consists simply 
in the improbability of their being realized, and not in 
their objects being uncongenial with the human mind ; 
but another effect of the predominance of imagination 
may be a disposition to form schemes or indulge ex- 
pectations essentially incongruous with the nature of 
man. Perhaps however you will say, What is that na- 
ture ? Is it not a mere passive thing, variable almost 
to infinity, according to climate, to institutions, and to 
the different ages of time ? Even taking it in a civi- 
lized state, what relation is there between such a form 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 146 

of human nature as that displayed at Sparta, and, for 
instance, the modern society denominated Quakers, or 
the Moravian Fraternity ? And how can we ascertain 
what is congenial with it or not, unless itself were first 
ascertained ? Allow me to say, that I speak of human 
nature in its most general principles only, as social, self- 
interested, inclined to the wrong, slow to improve, 
passing through several states of capacity and feeling 
in the successive periods of life, and the few other such 
permanent distinctions. Any of these distinctions may 
vanish from the sight of a visionary mind, while forming, 
for itself, or for others, such schemes as could have 
sprung only from an imagination become wayward 
through its uncontrolled power, and its victory over 
sober reason. I remember, for example, a person, very 
young I confess, who was so enchanted with the stories 
of Gregory Lopez, and one or two more pious hermits, 
as almost to form the resolution to betake himself to 
some wilderness and live as Gregory did. At any time, 
the very word hermit was enough to transport him, like 
the witch's broomstick, to the solitary hut, which was 
delightfully surrounded by shady solemn groves, mossy 
rocks, crystal streams, and gardens of radishes. While 
this fancy lasted, he forgot the most obvious of all 
facts, that man is not made for habitual solitude, nor can 
endure it without misery, except when transformed into 
a genuine superstitious ascetic ; — questionable whether 
even then.* 

Contrary to human nature, is the proper description 

* Lopez indeed was often visited by pious persons who sought his 
instructions ; this was a great modification of the loneliness, and of 
the trial involved in enduring it ; but my hermit was fond of the 
idea of an uninhabited island, or of a wilderness so deep that these 
good people would not have been able to come at him, without a 
more formidable pilgrimage than was ever yet made for the sake of 
obtaining instruction. 

L 



146 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

of those theories of education, and those flatteries of 
parental hope, which presume that young people in 
general may be matured to eminent wisdom, and adorned 
Avith the universality of noble attainments, by the period 
at which in fact the intellectual faculty is but beginning 
to operate with any thing like clearness and sustained 
force. Because some individuals, remarkable exceptions 
to the natural character of youth, have in their very 
childhood advanced beyond the youthful giddiness, 
and debility of reason, and have displayed, at the age 
perhaps of twenty, a wonderful assemblage of all the 
strong and all the graceful endowments, it therefore 
only needs a proper system of education to make other 
young people, (at least those of my family, the parent 
thinks,) be no longer what nature has always made 
youth to be. Let this be adopted, and we shall see 
multitudes at that age possessing the judgment of sages, 
or the diversified acquirements and graces of all-accom- 
plished gentlemen and ladies. And what, pray, are 
the beings which are to become, by the discipline of 
ten or a dozen years, such finished examples of various 
excellence ? Not, surely, these boys here, that love 
nothing so much as tops, marbles and petty mischief — 
and those girls, that have yet attained but few ideas 
beyond the dressing of dolls ? Yes, even these ! 

The same charge of being unadapted to man, falls 
on the speculations of those philosophers and philan- 
thropists, who have eloquently displayed the happiness, 
and asserted the practicability, of something near an 
equality of property and modes of life throughout 
society. Those who really anticipated or projected the 
practical trial of the system, must have forgotten on 
what planet those apartments were built, or those 
arbours were growing, in which they were favoured 
with such visions. For in these visions they beheld the 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 147 

ambition of one part of the inhabitants, the craft or 
audacity of another, the avarice of another, the stupi- 
dity or indolence of another, and the selfishness of 
almost all, as mere adventitious faults, super- induced 
on the character of the species, and instantly flying oft' 
at the approach of better institutions, which shall prove, 
to the confusion of all the calumniators of human 
nature, that nothing is so congenial to it as industry, 
moderation, and disinterestedness. It is at the same 
time but just to acknowledge, that many of them have 
admitted the necessity of such a grand transformation 
as to make man another being previously to the adoption 
of the system. This is all very well : when the proper 
race of men shall come from Utopia, the system and 
polity may very properly come along with them ; or 
these sketches of it, prepared for them by us, may be 
carefully preserved here, in volumes more precious than 
those of the Sibyls, against their arrival. Till then, 
the sober observers of the human character will read 
these beautiful theories as romances, offering the fairest 
game for sarcasm in their splenetic hours, when they 
are disgusted with human nature, and infusing melan- 
choly in their benevolent ones, when they look on it 
with a commiserating and almost desponding sentiment. 
The character of the age of chivalry presents itself 
conspicuously among this class of illustrations. One of 
its most prominent distinctions was, an immense in- 
congruity with the simplest principles of human nature. 
For instance, in the concern of love : a generous young 
man became attached to an interesting young woman — 
interesting as he believed, from having once seen her ; 
for probably he never heard her speak. His heart 
would naturally prompt him to seek access to the object 
whose society, it told him, would make him happy ; 
and if in a great measure debarred from that society, 

l2 



148 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

he would surrender himself to the melting mood of the 
passion, in the musings of pensive retirement. But this 
was not the way. He must exile himself for successive 
years from her society and vicinity, and every soft 
indulgence of feeling, and rush boldly into all sorts of 
hardships and perils, deeming no misfortune so great as 
not to find constant occasions of hazarding his life 
among the roughest foes, or, if he could find or fancy 
them, the strangest monsters ; and all this, not as the 
alleviation of despair, but as the courtship of hope. 
And when he was at length betrayed to flatter himself 
that such a probation, through every kind of patience 
and danger, might entitle him to throw his trophies and 
himself at her imperial feet, it was very possible she 
might be affronted at his having presumed to be still 
alive. It is unnecessary to refer to the other parts of the 
institution of chivalry, the whole system of which would 
seem more adapted to any race of beings exhibited in 
the Arabian Nights, or to any still wilder creation of 
fancy, than to a community of creatures appointed to 
live by cultivating the soil, anxious to avoid pain and 
trouble, seeking the reciprocation of affection on the 
easiest terms, and nearest to happiness in regular 
pursuits and quiet domestic life. 

One cannot help reflecting here, how amazingly ac- 
commodating this human nature has been to all insti- 
tutions but wise and good ones ; insomuch that an order 
of life and manners conceived in the wildest deviation 
from all plain sense and native instinct, could be prac- 
tically adopted, by some of those who had rank and 
courage enough, and adored and envied by the rest of 
mankind. Still, the genuine tendencies of nature have 
survived the strange but transient sophistications of 
time, and remain the same after the age of chivalry is 
gone far toward that oblivion, t0 whieh you will not 



The epithet romantic. 149 

fail to wish that many other institutions might speedily 
follow it. Forgive the prolixity of these illustrations 
intended to show, that schemes and speculations re- 
specting the interests either of an individual or of 
society, which are inconsistent with the natural con- 
stitution of man, may, except where it should be 
reasonable to expect some supernatural intervention, 
be denominated romantic. 

The tendency to this species of romance, may be 
caused, or very greatly promoted, by an exclusive taste 
for what is grand, a disease with which some few minds 
are affected. They have no pleasure in contemplating 
the system of things as the Creator has ordered it, a 
combination of great and little, in which the great is 
much more dependent on the little, than the little on the 
great. They cut out the grand objects, to dispose them 
into a world of their own. All the images in their intel- 
lectual scene must be colossal and mountainous. They 
are constantly seeking what is animated into heroics, 
what is expanded into immensity, what is elevated above 
the stars. But for great empires, great battles, great en- 
terprises, great convulsions, great geniuses, great temples, 
great rivers, there would be nothing worth naming in this 
part of the creation.* All that belongs to connexion, 
gradation, harmony, regularity, and utility, is thrown out 
of sight behind these forms of vastness. The influence 
of this exclusive taste will reach into the system of 
projects and expectations. The man will wish to 
summon the world to throw aside its tame accustomed 
pursuits, and adopt at once more magnificent views and 
objects, and will be indignant at mankind that they 

* Just as, to employ a humble comparison, a votary of fashion, 
after visiting a crowded public place which happened at that time 
not to be graced by the presence of many people of consequence, tells 
you, with an affected tone, " There was not a creature there." 



150 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

cannot or will not be sublime. Impatient of little mean 
and slow processes, he will wish for violent transitions 
and entirely new institutions. He will perhaps determine 
to set men the example of performing something great, 
in some ill-judged sanguine project in which he will 
fail ; and, after being ridiculed by society, both for the 
scheme and its catastrophe, may probably abandon all 
the activities of life, and become a misanthrope the rest 
of his days. At any rate, he will disdain all labour 
to perform well in little or moderate things, when 
fate has frowned on his higher ambition. 



LETTER III. 

One of the most obvious distinctions of the works 
of romance is, an utter violation of all the relations 
between ends and means. Sometimes such ends are pro- 
posed as seem quite dissevered from means, inasmuch 
as there are scarcely any supposable means on earth to 
accomplish them : but no matter ; if we cannot ride 
we must swim, if we cannot swim we must fly ; the 
object is effected by a mere poetical omnipotence that 
wills it. And very often practicable objects are at- 
tained by means the most fantastic, improbable, or in- 
adequate; so that there is scarcely any resemblance 
between the method in which they are accomplished by 
the dexterity of fiction, and that which we are con- 
demned to follow if we will attempt the same things in 
the actual economy of the world. Now, when you see 
this absurdity of imagination prevailing in the calcu- 
lations of real life, you may justly apply the epithet 
— romantic. 

Indeed a strong and habitually indulged imagination 
may be absorbed in the end, if it be not a concern of 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 151 

absolute immediate urgency, as for awhile quite to forget 
the process of attainment. That power has incantations 
to dissolve the rigid laws of time and distance, and place 
a man in something so like the presence of his object, 
as to create the temporary hallucination of an ideal pos- 
session ; and it is hard, when occupying the verge of 
Paradise, to be flung far back in order to find or make 
a path to it, with the slow and toilsome steps of reality. 
In the luxury of promising himself that what he wishes 
will by some means take place at some time, he forgets 
that he is advancing no nearer to it — except on the wise 
and patient calculation that he must, by the simple fact 
of growing older, be coming somewhat nearer to every 
event that is yet to happen to him. He is like a tra- 
veller, who, amidst his indolent musings in some soft 
bower, where he has sat down to be shaded a little 
while from the rays of noon, falls asleep, and dreams he 
is in the midst of all the endearments of home, insensible 
that there are many hills and dales for him yet to traverse. 
But the traveller will awake ; so too will our other 
dreamer ; and if he has the smallest capacity of just 
reflection he will regret to have wasted in reveries the 
time which ought to have been devoted to practical 
exertions. 

But even though reminded of the necessity of inter- 
vening means, the man of imagination will often be 
tempted to violate their relation with ends, by permitting 
himself to dwell on those happy casualties, which the 
prolific sorcery of his mind will promptly figure to him 
as the very things, if they would but occur, to ac- 
complish his wishes at once, without the toil of a sober 
process. If they would occur — and things as strange 
might and do happen : he reads in the newspapers that 
an estate of ten thousand per annum was lately adjudged 
to a man who was working on the road. He has even 



152 



ON THE APPLICATION OF 



heard of people dreaming that in such a place something 
valuable was concealed ; and that, on searching or 
digging that place, they found an old earthen pot, full 
of gold and silver pieces of the times of good King 
Charles the Martyr. Mr. B. was travelling by the mail- 
coach, in which he met with a most interesting young 
lady whom he had never seen before ; they were mu- 
tually delighted, and were married in a few weeks. 
Mr. C, a man of great merit in obscurity, was walking 
across a field when Lord D., in chase of a fox, leaped 
over the hedge and fell off his horse into a ditch. Mr C. 
with the utmost alacrity and kind solicitude helped his 
lordship out of the ditch, and recovered for him his 
escaped horse. The consequence was inevitable ; his 
lordship, superior to the pride of being mortified to have 
been seen in a condition so unlucky for giving the im 
pression of nobility, commenced a friendship with Mr. 
C, and introduced him into honourable society and the 
road to fortune. A very ancient maiden lady of a large 
fortune happening to be embarrassed in a crowd, a 
young clergyman offered her his arm and politely at- 
tended her home ; this attention so captivated her, that 
she bequeathed and soon after left him her whole estate 
— though she had many poor relations. 

That class of fictitious works called novels, though 
much more like real life than the romances which 
^receded, is yet full of these lucky incidents and 
adventures, which are introduced as the chief means 
toward the ultimate success. A young man, without 
fortune, for instance, is precluded from making his 
addresses to a young female in a superior situation, 
whom he believes not indifferent to him, until he can 
approach her with such worldly advantages as it might 
not be imprudent or degrading for her to cast a look 
upon. Now how is this to be accomplished ? — Why, 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 153 

I suppose, by the exertion of his talents in some 
practicable and respectable department ; and perhaps 
the lady, besides, will generously and spontaneously 
condescend to abdicate from partiality to him, some of 
the trappings and luxuries of rank. You really sup- 
pose this is the plan ? I am sorry yott have so much 
less genius than a novel-writer. This young man has 
an uncle, who has been absent many years, nobody 
knew where, except the young man's lucky stars. 
During his absence, the old uncle has made a large 
fortune, with which he returns to his native land, at a 
time most opportune for every one but a highwayman, 
who, attacking him in a road through a wood, is 
frightened away by the young hero, who happens to 
come there at the instant, to rescue and recognize his 
uncle, and to be in return recognized and made the heir 
to as many thousands as the lady or her family could 
wish. Now what is the intended impression of all this 
on the reader's mind ? What if he certainly have no 
uncle in any foreign fortune-making country ? But 
there are rich old gentlemen who are uncles to nobody. 
Is our novel-reader to reckon on it as a likely and a 
desirable chance, that one of these, just after returning 
from the Indies with a ship-load of wealth, shall be set 
upon by a highwayman; and to take it for certain 
that in that case he, the novel-reader, shall have the 
luck to come to the very spot in the nick of time, tc 
send the dastard robber galloping off, to make an 
instant and entire seizure of the old gentleman's 
affections, find himself constrained to go and take a 
present share of the opulence, and the heirship of the 
whole, and have his patron to join his pleading that 
Amelia, or Alicia, or Cecilia, (as the case may be,) 
may now be willing and be permitted to favour his 
addresses? One's indignation is excited at the im- 



154 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

moral tendency of such lessons to young readers, who 
are thus taught to undervalue and reject all sober 
regular plans for compassing an object, and to muse 
on improbabilities till they become foolish enough to 
expect them ; thus betrayed, as an inevitable con- 
sequence, into one folly more, that of being melan- 
choly when they find they may expect them in vain. 
It is unpardonable that these pretended instructors by 
example should thus explode the calculations and 
exertions of manly resolution, destroy the connexion 
between ends and means, and make the rewards of 
virtue so dependent on chance, that if the reader does 
not either regard the whole fable with contempt, 
or promise himself he shall receive the favours of 
fortune in some similar way, he must close the book 
with the conviction that he may hang or drown 
himself as soon as he pleases ; that is to sslj, unless 
he has learnt from some other source a better morality 
and religion than these books will ever teach him. 

Another deception in respect to means, is the facility 
with which fancy passes along the train of them, and 
reckons to their ultimate effect at a glance, without 
resting at the successive stages, and considering the 
labours and hazards of the protracted slow process from 
each point to the next. If a given number of years Live 
allowed requisite for the accomplishment of an object, 
the romantic mind vaults from one last day of December 
to another, and seizes at once the whole product of all 
the intermediate days, without condescending to recol- 
lect that the sun never shone yet on three hundred and 
sixty-five days at once, and that they must be slowly 
told and laboured one by one. If a favourite plan is 
to be accomplished by means of a certain large amount 
of property, which is to be produced from what is at 
present a very small one, the calculations of a sanguine 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 15b 

mind can change shillings into guineas, and guineas 
into hundreds of pounds, a thousand times faster than, 
in the actual experiment, those lazy shillings and 
guineas can be compelled to mount to these higher 
denominations of value. You remember the noble 
calculation of Alnaschar on his basket of earthenware, 
which was so soon to obtain him the Sultan's daughter. 

Where imagination is not delusive enough to em- 
body future casualties as effective means, it may yet 
represent very inadequate means as competent. In a 
well-balanced mind, no conception will grow into a 
favourite purpose, unaccompanied by a process of the 
judgment, deciding its practicability by an estimate of 
the means ; in a mind under the ascendency of imagina- 
tion this is a subordinate after-task. By the time that 
this comes to be considered, the projector is too much 
enamoured of an end that is deemed to be great, 
to abandon it because the means are suspected to be 
little. But then they must cease to appear little ; for 
there must be an apparent proportion between the 
means and the end. Well, trust the whole concern to 
the plastic faculty, and presently every insignificant 
particle of instrumentality, and every petty contrivance 
for its management, will swell into magnitude ; pigmies 
and Lilliputians with their tiny arrows will soon grow 
up into giants wielding spears; and the diffident con- 
sciousness which was at first somewhat afraid to 
measure the plan, as to its means of execution, against 
the object, will give place to a generous scorn of the 
timidity of doubting. The mind will most ingeniously 
place the apparatus between its eye and the object at a 
distance, and be deluded by the false position which 
makes the one look as large as the other. 

The consideration of the deceptive calculations on the 
effect of insufficient means, would lead to a wide variety 



156 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

of particulars ; I will only touch slightly on a few. 
Various projects of a benevolent order would come under 
this charge. Did you ever listen to the discussion of 
plans for the civilization of barbarous nations without 
the intervention of conquest ? I have, with the most 
sceptical kind of interest.* That very many millions 
of the species should form only a brutal adjunct to 
civilized and enlightened man is a disasterous thing, 
notwithstanding the whimsical attempts of some inge- 
nious men to represent the state of roving savages as pre- 
ferable to every other condition of life; a state for which, 
no doubt, they would have been willing, if they could 
have the requisite physical seasoning for it, to abandon 
their fame and proud refinements. But where are the 
means to reclaim these wretched beings into the civi- 
lized family of man ? A few examples indeed are found 
in history, of barbarous tribes being formed into well- 
ordered and considerably enlightened states by one man, 
who began the attempt without any power but that of 
persuasion, and perhaps delusion. There are other in- 
stances, of the success obtained by a small combinatior 
of men employing the same means ; as in the great 
undertaking of the Jesuits in South America. But 
have not these moral phenomena been far too few to be 
made a standard for the speculations of sober men ? And 
have they not also come to us with too little explanation 
to illustrate any general principles ? To me it appears 
extremely difficult to comprehend how the means, re- 
corded by historians to have been employed by some of 
the unarmed civilizers, could have produced so great 
an effect. In observing the half-civilized condition of 
a large part of the population of these more improved 
countries, and in reading what travellers describe of the 

* I here place out of view that religion by which Omnipotence will 
at length transform the world. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 157 

state and dispositions of the various orders of savages, 
it would seem a presumption unwarranted by any thing 
we ever saw of the powers of the human mind to suppose 
that any man, or any ten men now on earth, if landed 
and left on a savage coast, would be able to transform 
a number of stupid or ferocious tribes into a commu- 
nity of mild intelligence and regular industry. We are 
therefore led to believe that the few unaccountable in- 
stances conspicuous in the history of the world, of the 
success of one or a few men in this work, must have 
been the result of such a combination of favourable 
circumstances, cooperating with their genius and per- 
severance, as no other man can hope to experience. 
Such events seem like Joshua's arresting the sun and 
moon, things that have been done, but can be done no 
more. Pray, which of you, I should say, could expect 
to imitate with success, if indeed he could think it right 
to try, the deception of Manco Capac, and awe a wild 
multitude into order by something analogous to a pre- 
tended commission from the sun ? What would be 
your first expedient m the attempt to substitute that 
regularity and constraint which they hate, for that 
lawless liberty which they love ? How could you 
reduce them to be conscious, or incite them to be proud, 
of those wants, for being subject to which they would 
regard you as their inferiors ; wants of which, unless 
they could comprehend the refinement, they must neces- 
sarily despise the debility ? By what magic are you 
to render visible and palpable any part of the world of 
science or of abstraction, to beings who have hardly 
words to denominate even their sensations ? And by 
what concentrated force of all kinds of magic together, 
that Egypt or Chaldea ever pretended, are you to in- 
troduce humanity and refinement among such creatures 
as the Northern Indians, described by Mr. Hearne ? 



158 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

If an animated young philanthropist still zealously- 
maintained that it might be done, I should be amused 
to think how that warm iamgination would be quelled, 
if he were obliged to make the experiment. It is easy 
for him to be romantic while enlivened by the inter- 
course of cultivated society, while reading of the contri- 
vances and the patience of ancient legislators, or while 
infected with the enthusiasm of poetry. He feels as if 
he could be the moral conqueror of a continent. He 
becomes a Hercules amidst imaginary labours ; he 
traverses untired, while in his room, wide tracts of the 
wilderness ; he surrounds himself with savage men, 
without either trembling or revolting at their aspects 
or fierce exclamations, or the proudly exhibited and 
vaunted trophies of their sanguinary exploits ; he makes 
eloquent speeches to them, not knowing a word of their 
language, which language, if he did know it, he would find 
a wretched vehicle for the humblest of his meanings ; they 
listen with the deepest attention, are convinced of the 
necessity of adopting new habits of life, and speedily 
soften into humanity and brighten into wisdom. Bu. 
he would become sober enough, if compelled to travel 
half a thousand miles through the desert, or over the 
snow, with some of these subjects of his lectures and 
legislation ; to accompany them in a hunting excursion ; 
to choose in a stormy night between exposure in the 
open air and the smoke and grossness of their cabins ; 
to observe the intellectual faculty narrowed almost to 
a point, limited to a scanty number of the meanest class 
of ideas ; to find by repeated experiments that his kind 
of ideas could neither reach their understanding nor 
excite their curiosity ; to see the ravenous appetite of 
wolves succeeded for a season by a stupefaction insensible 
even to the few interests which kindle the ardour of a 
savage ; to witness loathsome habits occasionally diver- 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 159 

sified by abominable ceremonies ; or to be for once the 
spectator of some of the circumstances attendant on the 
wars of savages. 

But there are many more familiar illustrations of the 
extravagant estimate of means. One is, the expec- 
tation of far too much from mere direct instruction. 
This is indeed so general, that it will hardly be denomi- 
nated romantic, except in the most excessive instances. 
Observe it, however, a moment in the concern of edu- 
cation. Nothing seems more evident than the influence 
of external circumstances, distinct from the regular dis- 
cipline of the parent or tutor, in forming the character 
of youth. Nothing again seems more evident than 
that direct instruction, though an useful cooperator 
with the influence of these circumstances when they 
are auspicious, is a feeble counteractor if they be 
malignant. And yet this mere instruction is enough, 
in the account of thousands of parents, to lead the youth 
to wisdom and happiness ; even that very youth whom 
the united influence of almost all things else which he 
is exposed to see, and hear, and participate, is drawing, 
with the unrelaxing grasp of a fiend, to destruction. 

A too sanguine opinion of the efficacy of instruction, 
has sometimes possessed those who teach from the 
pulpit. Till the dispensations of a better age shall 
be opened on the world, the measure of effect which 
may reasonably be expected from preaching, is to be 
determined by a view of the visible effects which are 
actually produced on congregations from week to week ; 
and this view is far from flattering. One might appeal 
to preachers in general — What striking improvements 
are apparent in your societies ? When you inculcate 
charity on the Sunday, do the misers in your con- 
gregations liberally open their chests and purses to 
the distressed on Monday ? Might I not ask as well, 



150 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

whether the stones and trees realty did move at the 
voice of Orpheus ? After you have unveiled even the 
scenes of eternity to the gay and frivolous, do you find 
in more than some rare instances a dignified serious- 
ness take place of their follies ? What is the effect, on 
the splendid, sumptuous, and fashionable professors of 
Christianity, of your inculcation (if indeed you venture 
it) of that solemn interdiction of their habits, " Be not 
conformed to this world ?" Yet, notwithstanding this 
melancholy state of facts, some preachers, from the 
persuasion of a mysterious apostolic sacredness in the 
office, or from a vain estimate of their talents, or from 
mistaking the applause with which the preacher has 
been flattered, for the proof of a salutary effect on the 
minds of the hearers, or, in some instances, from a 
much worthier cause, the affecting influence of sacred 
truth on their own minds, have been inclined to anti- 
cipate striking effects from their public ministrations. 
Melancthon was a romantic youth when he began to 
preach. He expected that all must be inevitably and 
immediately persuaded, when they should hear what 
he had to tell them. But he soon discovered, as he 
said, that old Adam was too hard for young Melancthon. 
In addition to the grand fact of the depravity of the 
human heart, there are so many causes operating in- 
juriously through the week on the characters of those 
who form a congregation, that a thoughtful man often 
feels an invading melancholy amidst his religious 
addresses, from the reflection that he is making a 
feeble effort against a powerful evil, a single effort 
against a combination of evils, a temporary and trans- 
ient effort against evils of almost continual operation, 
and a purely intellectual effort against evils, many of 
which act on the senses. When the preacher con- 
siders the effect naturally resulting from the sight of 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 161 

so many bad examples, the communications of so many 
injurious acquaintance, the hearing and talking of 
what would be, if written, so many volumes of vanity 
and nonsense, the predominance of fashionable dissi- 
pation in a higher class, and of a coarser corruption 
in a lower ; he must indeed imagine himself endowed 
with a super-human power of eloquence, if the instruc- 
tions expressed in an hour or two on the sabbath, 
and soon, as he might know, forgotten by most of his 
hearers, are to leave in the mind something which 
shall be, through the week, the efficacious repellant 
to the contact and contamination of all these forces of 
mischief. But how soon he would cease to imagine 
such an efficacy in his exhortations, if the greater 
number of his hearers could sincerely and accurately 
tell him, toward the end of the week, in what degree 
these admonitions had affected and governed them, 
in opposition to their corrupt tendencies, their habits, 
and their temptations ! What would be, in the five 
or six days, the number of the moments and the in- 
stances in which these instructions would be proved to 
have been effectual, compared with the whole number 
of moments and circumstances to which they were ap- 
plicable by appropriateness of instruction and warning ? 
How often, while hearing such a week's detail of the 
lives of a considerable proportion of a congregation, a 
man would have occasion to say, By whose instructions 
were these persons influenced then, in that neglect of 
devout exercises, that excess of levity, that waste of 
time, that avowed contempt of religion, that language 
of profaneness and imprecation, those contrivances of 
selfishness, those paroxysms of passion, that study of 
sensuality, or that habitual general obduracy in evil ? 

But the preacher to whose sanguine temperament 
I am reluctantly applying these cooling suggestions, 

M 



162 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

may tell me, that it is not by means of any force which 
he can throw into his religious instructions, that he 
expects them to be efficacious ; but that he believes a 
divine energy will accompany what is undoubtedly a 
message from heaven. I am pleased with the piety, 
and the sound judgment, (as I esteem it,) with which 
he expects the conversion of careless or hardened men 
from nothing less than an operation strictly considered 
as of divine power. But I would remind him, that 
the probability, at any given season, that such a 
power will intervene, must be in proportion to the 
frequency or infrequency with which its intervention 
is actually manifested in the general course of experi- 
ence ; that is, in proportion to the number of happy 
transformations of character which we see taking place 
under the efficacy of religious truth. He must admit 
this to be substantially the rule: if he require that it 
be modified by the consideration of promises and signs 
from the Supreme Power of the near approach of an 
augmented divine interference for the efficacy of re- 
ligion I shall willingly admit what I can of such a 
reason for conceding such a modification. 

Reformers in general are very apt to overrate the 
power of the means by which their theories are to be 
realized. They are for ever introducing the story of 
Archimedes, who was to have moved the world if he 
could have found any second place on which to plant 
his engines ; and imagination discloses to moral and 
political projectors a cloud-built and truly extra- 
mundane position, which they deem to be exactly such 
a convenience in their department, as the mathema- 
tician, whose converse with demonstrations had saved 
part of his reason from being run away with by his 
fancy, confessed to be a desideratum in his. This 
terra firma is named the Omnipotence of Truth. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 163 

It is presumed, that truth must at length, through the 
indefatigable exertions of intellect, become generally 
victorious ; and that all vice, being the result of a 
mistaken judgment of the nature or the means of hap- 
piness, must therefore accompany the exit of error. 
By the same rule it is presumed of the present times 
also, or at least of those immediately approaching, 
that in every society and every mind where truth is 
clearly admitted, the reforms which it dictates must 
substantially follow. I have the most confident faith 
that the prevalence of truth, making its progress by a 
far mightier agency than mere philosophic inquiry, is 
appointed to irradiate the latter ages of a dark and 
troubled world ; and, on the strength of prophetic 
intimations, I anticipate its coming sooner, by at least 
a thousand ages, than a disciple of that philosophy 
which rejects revelation, as the first proud step toward 
the improvement of the world, is warranted, by a view 
of the past and present state of mankind, to predict. 
The assurance from the same oracle is the authority 
for believing that when truth shall have acquired 
the universal dominion over the understanding, it 
will evince a still nobler power in the general effect 
of conforming the heart and the life to its laws. But 
in the present state of the moral system, our expec- 
tations of the effect of truth on the far greater number 
of the persons who shall assent to its dictates, have 
no right to exceed such measures of probability as 
have been given by experience. It would be gratify- 
ing no doubt to believe, that the several powers in the 
human constitution are in such faithful combination, 
that to gain the judgment would be to secure the whole 
man. And if all history, and the memory of our own 
observation and experience, could be merged in Lethe, 
it might be believed — perhaps for two or three hours. 

m 2 



164} ON THE APPLICATION Oi« 

How could an attentive observer or reflector believe 
it longer ? How long would it be that a keenly self- 
inspecting mind could detect no schism, none at all, 
between its convictions and inclinations ? And as to 
others, is it not flagrantly evident that very many 
persons, with a most absolute conviction, by their own 
ingenuous avowal, that one certain course of action is 
virtue and happiness, and another, vice and misery, do 
yet habitually choose the latter? It is not improbable 
that several millions of human beings are at this very 
hour thus acting in violation of the laws of rectitude, 
while those laws are acknowledged by them, not only 
as impositions of moral authority, but as vital prin- 
ciples of their own true self-interest* And do not 
even the best men confess a fierce discord between the 
tendencies of their imperfectly renovated nature, and 
the dictates of that truth which they revere ? They say 
with St. Paul, " That which I do, I allow not ; for what 
I would, that I do not ; but what I hate, that I do ; to 
will is present with me, but how to perform that which 
is good, I find not ; the good that I would, that I do 

* The criminal himself has the clearest consciousness that he 
violates the dictates of his judgment. How trifling is the subtilty 
which affects to show that lie does not violate them, by alleging, 
that every act of choice must be preceded by a determination of the 
judgment, and that therefore in choosing an evil, a man does at the 
time judge it to be on some account preferable, though he may 
know it to be wrong. It is not to be denied that the choice does 
imply such a conclusion of the judgment. But this conclusion is 
made according to a narrow and subordinate scale of estimating 
good and evil, while the mind is conscious that, judging according to 
a larger scale, that is, the rightfully authoritative one, the opposite 
conclusion is true. It judges a thing patter for immediate pleasure, 
which it knows to be worse for ultimate advantage. The criminal 
therefore may be correctly said to act according to his judgment, in 
choosing it for present pleasure. But since it is the great office of 
the judgment to decide what is wisest and best on the whole, the 
man maj truly be said to act against his judgment, who acts ir. . 
opposition to the conclusion which it forms on this greater scale. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 165 

not, and the evil which 7 would not, that I do." The 
serious self-observer recollects instances, (what a sin- 
gularity of happiness if he cannot !) in which a tempta- 
tion, exactly addressed to his passions or his habits, 
has prevailed in spite of the sternest interdict of his 
judgment, pronounced at the very crisis. Perhaps the 
most awful sanctions by which the judgment can ever 
enforce its authority, were distinctly brought to his 
view at the same moment with its dictates. In the sub- 
sequent hour he had to reflect, that the ideas of God, a 
future account, a world of retribution, could not pre- 
vent him from violating his conscience. That he did 
not at the critical moment dwell deliberately on these 
remonstrant ideas, in order to give them effect on his 
will, is nothing against my argument. It is of the 
very essence of the fatal disorder, that the passions 
will not lei the mind strongly fix on the preventive 
considerations. And what greater power than this 
could they need to defeat the power of truth ? If the 
passions can thus prevent the mind from strongly 
fixing on the most awful considerations when distinctly 
presented by truth in counteraction to temptation, 
they can destroy the efficacy of the truth which presents 
them. Truth can do no more than discriminate the 
good from the evil before us, enforce the inducements 
to choose right, and declare the consequences of our 
choice. When this is inefficacious, its power has 
failed. And no fact can be more evident than that 
perceptive truth, apprehended and acknowledged, often 
thus fails. Let even its teacher and advocate confess 
honestly whether he have not had to deplore number- 
less times the deficient efficacy of his own clearest 
convictions. And if we survey mankind as under an 
experiment relative to this point, it will be found, 
in instances innumerable, that to have informed and 



166 OX THE APPLICATION OF 

convinced a man may be but little toward emancipating 
him from the habits which he sincerely acknowledges to 
be wrong. There is then no such inviolable connexion 
as some men have supposed between the admission of 
truth, and consequent action. And therefore, most im- 
portant though it is that truth be exhibited and admitted, 
the expectations that presume its omnipotence, without 
extraordinary intervention, are romantic delusion. 

You will observe that in this case of trying the 
efficacy of the truth on others, I have supposed the 
great previous difficulty, of presenting it to the under- 
standing so luminously as to impress irresistible convic- 
tion, to be already overcome ; though the experimental 
reformer will find this introductory work such an 
arduous undertaking, that he will be often tempted to 
abandon it as hopeless. 



LETTER IV. 

When the gloomy estimate of means and of plans 
for the amendment of mankind does not make an 
exception of the actual human administration of the 
religion of Christ, I am anxious not to seem to fail in 
justice to that religion, by which I believe that every 
improvement of a sublime order yet awaiting our race 
must be effected. I trust I do not fail ; since I keep 
in my mind a clear distinction between Christianity 
itself as a thing of divine origin and nature, and 
the administration of it by a system of merely human 
powers and means. These means are indeed of divine 
appointment, and to a certain extent are accompanied 
by a special divine agency. But how far this agency 
accompanies them is seen in the measure and limit of 
their success. Where that stands arrested, the fact itself 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 167 

is the proof that further than so the superior operation 
does not attend the human agents and means. There 
it stops, and leaves them to accomplish, if they can, 
what remains. What is it that remains? If the 
general transformation of mankind into such persons 
as could be justly deemed true disciples of Christ, were 
regarded as the object of his religion, how mysteriously 
small a part of that object has the divine agency ever 
yet been exerted to accomplish ! And then, the awful 
and immense remainder evinces the inexpressible imbe- 
cility of the means, when left to be applied as a mere 
human administration. The manifestation of its incom- 
petency is fearfully conspicuous in the vast majority, 
the numerous millions of Christendom, and the millions 
of even our own country, on whom this religion has no 
direct influence. I need not observe what numbers of 
these latter have heard or read the evangelic declaration 
thousands of times, nor how very many of them are 
fortified in an insensibility, on which its most momentous 
announcements strike as harmless as the slenderest 
arrows on the shield of Ajax. Probably each religious 
teacher can recollect, besides his general experience, 
very particular instances, in which he has set himself 
to exert the utmost force of his mind, in reasoning, 
illustration, and serious appeal, to impress some one 
important idea, on some one class of persons to whom 
it was most specifically applicable and needful ; and has 
perceived the plainest indications, both at the instant 
and immediately afte , that it was an attempt of the 
same kind as that of demolishing a tower by assaulting 
it with pebbles. Nor do I need to observe how gene- 
rally, if a momentary impression be made, it is forgotten 
the following hour. 

A ma i convinced of the truth and excellence of 
Christianity, yet entertaining a more flattering notion 



168 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

of the reason and moral dispositions of man than any 
doctrine of that religion agrees to, may be very reluc- 
tant to admit that there is such a fatal disproportion 
between the apparatus, if I may call it so, of the 
christian means as left to be actuated by mere human 
energy, and the object which is to be attempted. But 
how is he to help himself? Will he reject the method 
of conclusion from facts, in an affair where they so 
peculiarly constitute the evidence ? He cannot look 
at the world of facts and contradict the representation 
in the preceding paragraph, unless his imagination is 
so illusive as to interpose an absolute phantasm between 
his eyes and the obvious reality. He cannot affirm 
that there is not an immense number of persons, even 
educated persons, receiving the christian declarations 
with indifference, or rejecting them with a carelessness 
partaking of contempt. The right means are applied, 
and with all the force that human effort can give them, 
but with a uspension, in these instances, of the divine 
agency, — and this is the effect ! While the fact stands 
out so palpably to view, I listen with something of 
wonder, and something of curiosity, when some pro- 
fessed believers and advocates of the gospel are avowing 
high anticipations of its progressive efficacy, chiefly or 
solely by means of the intrinsic force which it carries 
as a rational address to rational creatures. I cannot 
help inquiring what length of time is to be allowed for 
the experiment, which is to prove the adequacy of the 
means independently of special divine intervention. 
Nor can it be impertinent to ask what is, thus far, the 
state of the experiment and the success, among those 
who scout the idea of such a divine agency, as a dream 
of fanaticism. Might it not be prudent, to moderate 
the expressions of contempt for the persuasion which 
excites an importunity for extraordinary influence from 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 169 

the Almighty, till the success without it shall be greater? 
The utmost arrogance of this contempt will venture no 
comparison between the respective success, in the 
conversion of vain and wicked men, of the christian 
means as administered by those who implore and rely 
upon this special agency of heaven, and by those who 
deny any such operation on the mind ; deny it in sense 
and substance, whatever accommodating phrases they 
may sometimes employ. Has there indeed been any 
success at all, in that great business of conversion, to 
vindicate the calculations of this latter class from the 
imputation of all the vainest folly that should be meant 
by the word Romantic ? 

But, when I introduced the mention of reformers 
and their projects, I was not intending any reference 
to delusive presumptions of the operations of Christi- 
anity, but to those speculations and schemes for the 
amendment of mankind which anticipate their effect 
independently of its assistance ; some of them perhaps 
silently coinciding with several of its principles, while 
others expressly disclaim them. Unless these schemes 
bring with them, like spirits from heaven, an intrinsic 
competence to the great operation, without requiring 
to be met or aided by forwardness in the nature of the 
Subject, it may be predicted they will turn to the 
mortification of their fond projectors. There is no 
avoiding the ungracious perception, in surveying the 
general character of the race, that, after some allowance 
for what is called natural affection, and for compas- 
sionate sympathy, (an excellent principle, but extremely 
limited and often capricious in its operation,) the main 
strength of human feelings consists in the love of 
sensual gratification, of trifling amusement, of dis- 
tinction, of power, and of money. And by what 
suicidal inconsistency are these principles to lend their 



170 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

force to accomplish the schemes of pure reason and 
virtue, which, they will not fail to perceive, are plotting 
against them ? * And if they have far too perfect 
an instinct to be trepanned into such an employment 
of their force, and yet are the preponderating agents 
in the human heart, what other active principles of it 
can the renovator of human character call to his effec- 
tual aid, against the evils which are accumulated and 
defended by what is at once the baser and the stronger 
part ? Whatever principles of a better kind there may 
be in the nature, they can hold but a feeble and inert 
existence under this predominance of the worse, and 
could make but a faint insurrection in favour of the 
invading virtue. The very worst of them may indeed 
seem to become its allies when it happens, as it occa- 
sionally will, that the course of action which reforming 
virtue enforces, falls in the same line in which some of 
these meaner principles can attain their own ends. 
Then, and so far, an unsound coincidence may take 
place, and the external effect of those principles may 
be clad in specious appearances of virtue ; but the 
moment that the reforming projector summons their 
co-operation to a service in which they must desert 
their own object and their corrupt character, they will 
desert him. As long as he is condemned to depend, 
for the efficacy of his schemes, on the aid of so much 
pure propensity as he shall lind in the corrupted subject, 
he will be nearly in the case of a man attempting to 
climb a tree by laying hold, first on this side, and then 
on that, of some rotten twig, which still breaks off in 
his hand, and lets him fall among the nettles. 

* I am here reminded of the Spanish storj, of a village where 
the devil, having made the people excessively wicked, was punished 
by being compelled to assume the appearance and habit of a friar, 
and to preach so eloquently, in spite of his internal repugnance and 
rage, that the inhabitants were completely reformed. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 171 

Look again to the state of facts. Collective man is 
human nature ; and the conduct of this assemblage, 
under the diversified experiments continually made on 
it, expresses its true character, and indicates what may 
be expected from it. Now then, to what principle in 
human nature, as thus illustrated by trial, could you 
with confidence appeal in favour of any of the great 
objects which a benevolent man desires to see accom- 
plished ? If there were in it any one grand principle 
of goodness which an earnest call, and a great occasion, 
would raise into action, to assert or redeem the character 
of the species, one should think it would be what we 
call, incorrectly enough, Humanity. Consider then, in 
this nation for instance, which extols its own generous 
virtues to the sky, what lively and rational appeals have 
been made to the whole community, respecting the 
slave trade,* the condition of the poor, the immensity 
of cruelty perpetrated on brute animals, and the general, 
national, desperate complacency manifested for what 
is named honourable war, during a whole half century 
of lofty christian pretension, — appeals substantially in 
vain. And why in vain ? If humanity were a powerful 
principle in the nature of the community, they would 
not, in contempt of knowledge, expostulation, and 
spectacles of misery, persist in the most enormous 
violations of it. Why in vain ? but plainly because 

* Happily this topic of accusation is in a measure now set aside ; 
but it would have remained as immovable as the continent of Africa, 
if the legislature had not been forced into a conviction that, on the 
whole, the slave trade was not advantageous in point of pecuniary 
interest. At least the guilt would so have remained upon the nation 
acting in its capacity of a state. — This note is added subsequently to 

the first edition It maybe subjoined, in qualification of the reproach 

relative to the next article, — the condition of the poor, — that during 
a later period there has been an increase of the attention and exer- 
tion directed to that condition; which has, nevertheless, become 
worse and worse. 



172 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

there is not enough of that virtue of humanity, even 
in what is deemed a highly cultivated state of the 
human nature, to answer to the importunate call. Or 
if this be not the cause, let the idolaters of human 
divinity call, like the worshippers of Baal, in a louder 
voice. Their success is likely to be the same ; they 
will obtain no extraordinary exertion of power, though 
they cry from morning till the setting sun. And 
meanwhile the observer, who foresees their disap- 
pointment, would think himself warranted, but for 
the melancholy feeling that the nature in question is 
his own, to deride their expectations.— You know that 
a multitude of exemplifications might be added. And 
the thought of so many great and interesting objects, 
concerning the welfare of the human economy, as a 
sober appreciation of means, seems to place beyond 
the reach of the moral revolutionist,* will often, if he 
has a genuine benevolence, make him sad. He will 
repeat to himself, " How easy it is to conceive these 
inestimable improvements, and how nobly they would 
exalt my species ; but how to work them into the 
actual condition of man ! — Are there somewhere in 
possibility," he will ask, " intellectual and moral engines 
mighty enough to perform the great process? Where 
in darkness is the sacred repository in which they lie ? 
What Marraton-j- shall explore the unknown way to 
it ? The man who would not as part of the price of 

* It is obvious that I am not supposing this moral revolutionist to 
be armed with any power but that of persuasion. If he were a 
monarch, and possessed virtue and talents equal to his power, the 
case would be materially ditlerent. Even then, he would accomplish 
but little compared with what he could imagine, and would desire; 
yet, to all human appearance, he might be the instrument of wonder- 
fully changing the condition of society within his empire. If the 
soul of Alfred could return to the earth ! — 

t Spectator, No. 56. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 173 

the discovery, be glad to close up all the transatlantic 
mines, would deserve to be immured as the last victim 
of those deadly caverns." 

But each projecting visionary thinks the discovery 
is made ; and while surveying his own great magazine 
of expedients, consisting of Fortunatus's cap, the phi- 
losopher's stone, Aladdin's lamp, and other equally 
efficient articles, he is confident that the work may 
speedily be done. These powerful instruments of 
melioration perhaps lose their individual names under 
the general denomination of Philosophy, a term that 
would be venerable, if it could be rescued from the 
misfortune of being hackneyed into cant, and from 
serving the impiety which substitutes human ability to 
divine power. But it is of little consequence what 
denomination the projectors assume to themselves or 
their schemes : it is by their fruits that we shall know 
them. Their work is before them ; the scene of moral 
disorder presents to them the plagues which they are 
to stop, the mountain which they are to remove, the 
torrent which they are to divert, the desert which they 
are to clothe in verdure and bloom. Let them make 
their experiment, and add each his page to the humi- 
liating records in which experience contemns the folly 
of elated imagination.* 

* In reading lately some part of a tolerably well- written book 
published a few years since, I came to the following passage, which 
though in connexion indeed with the subject of elections, expresses 
the author's general opinion of the state of society, and of the means 
of exalting it to wisdom and virtue. " The bulk of the community 
begin to examine, to feel, to understand, their rights and duties. 
They only require the fostering care of the Philosopher to ripen 
them into complete rationality, and furnish them with the requisites 
of political and moral action." Here I paused in wondering mood. 
The fostering care of the Philosopher ! Why then is not the Philo- 
sopher about his business ? Why does he not go and indoctrinate a 
company of peasants in the intervals of a ploughing or a harvest 



174 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

All the speculations and schemes of the sanguine 
projectors of all ages, have left the world still a prey 
to infinite legions of vices and miseries, an immortal 
band, which has trampled in scorn on the monuments 
and the dust of the self-idolizing men, who dreamed, 
each in his day, that they were born to chase these 
evils out of the earth. If these vain demigods of an 
hour, who trusted to change the world, and who perhaps 
wished to change it only to make it a temple to their 
fame, could be awaked from the unmarked graves into 
which they sunk, to look a little while round on the 
scene for some traces of the success of their projects, 
would they not be eager to retire again into the 
chambers of death, to hide the shame of their re- 
day, when he will find them far more eager for his instructions than 
for drink ? Why does he not introduce himself among a circle of 
farmers, who cannot fail, as he enters, to be very judiciously dis- 
cussing, with the aid of their punch and their pipes, the most 
refined questions respecting their rights and duties, and wanting 
but exactly his aid, instead of more punch and tobacco, to possess 
themselves completely of the requisites of political and moral action? 
The populace of a manufactory, is another most promising seminary, 
where all the moral and intellectual endowments are so nearly 
" ripe," that he will seem less to have the task of cultivating than 
the pleasure of reaping. Even among the company in the ale-house, 
though the Philosopher might at first be sorry, and might wonder, 
to perceive a slight merge of the moral part of the man in the 
sensual, and to find in so vociferous a mood that inquiring reason 
which, he had supposed, would be waiting for him with the silent 
anxious docility of a pupil of Pythagoras, yet he would find a most 
powerful predisposition to truth and virtue, and there would be every 
thing to hope from the accuracy of his logic, the comprehensiveness 
of his views, and the beauty of his moral sentiments. But perhaps 
it will be explained, that the Philosopher does not mean to visit all 
these people in person ; but that having first secured the source of 
influence, having taken entire possession of princes, nobility, gentry, 
and clergy, which he expects to do in a very short time, he will 
manage them like an electrical machine, to operate on the bulk of 
the community. Either way the achievement will be great and 
admirable ; the latter event seems to have been predicted in that 
sibylline sentence, " When the sky falls we shall catch larks " 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 175 

membered presumption ? The wars and tyranny, the 
rancour, cruelty and revenge, together with all the 
other unnumbered vices and crimes with which the 
earth is still infested, are enough, if the whole mass 
could be brought within one section of the inhabited 
world, of the extent of a considerable kingdom, to 
constitute its whole population literally infernal, all 
but their being incarnate ; which last they would soon> 
through mutual destruction, cease to be. Hitherto 
the power of the radical cause of these many forms 
of evil, the corruption of the human heart, has sported 
with the weakness, or seduced the strength, of all 
human contrivances to subdue them. Nor are there 
as yet more than glimmering signs that we are com- 
mencing a better era, in which the means that have 
failed before, or the expedients of a new and more for- 
tunate invention, are appointed to victory and triumph. 
The nature of man still " casts ominous conjecture 
on the whole success." While that is corrupt, it will 
pervert even the very schemes and operations by which 
the world should be improved, though their first prin- 
ciples were pure as heaven. The innate principle of 
evil, instead of indifferently letting them alone, to work 
what good they can, will put forth a stupendous force 
to compel them into subserviency; so that revolutions, 
great discoveries, augmented science, and new forms 
of polity, shall become in effect what may be denomi- 
nated the sublime mechanics of depravity. 



LETTER V 

This view of moral and philosophical projects, 
added to that of the limited exertion of energy which 
the Almighty has made to attend, as yet, the dispen- 



176 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

sation of true religion, and accompanied with the con- 
sideration of the impotence of human efforts to make 
that dispensation efficacious where his will does not, 
forms a melancholy and awful contemplation. In the 
hours when it casts its gloom over the mind of the 
thoughtful observer, unless he can fully resign the 
condition of man to the infinite wisdom and goodness 
of his Creator, he will feel an emotion of horror, as if 
standing on the verge of a hideous gulf, into which 
almost all the possibilities, and speculations, and efforts, 
and hopes, relating to the best improvements of man- 
kind, are brought down by the torrent of ages, in a 
long abortive series, to be lost in final despair. 

To an atheist of enlarged sensibility, if there could 
be such a man, how dark and hideous, beyond all 
power of description, must be the long review and the 
undefinable prospect of this triumph of evil, unaccom- 
panied, as it must be presented to his thoughts, by any 
sublime process of intelligent power, converting, in 
some manner unknown to mortals, this evil into good, 
either during the course or in the result. A devout 
theist, when he becomes sad amidst his contemplations, 
recovers a submissive tranquillity, by reverting to his 
assurance of such a wise and omnipotent sovereignty 
and agency. As a believer in revelation, he is con- 
soled by the confidence both that this dark train of 
evils will ultimately issue in transcendent brightness, 
and that the evil itself in this world will at a future 
period almost cease. He is persuaded that the Great 
Spirit, who presides over this mysterious scene, has 
an energy of influence yet in reserve to beam forth on 
the earth, such as its inhabitants have never, except in 
a few momentary glimpses, beheld ; and that when the 
predestined period is completed for his kingdom to 
come, he will command this chaos of turbulent and 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 177 

malignant elements to become transformed into a fair 
and happy moral world. 

And is it not strange, my dear friend, to observe 
how carefully some philosophers, who deplore the con- 
dition of the world, and profess to expect its melio- 
ration,, keep their speculations clear of every idea of 
divine interposition ? No builders of houses or cities 
were ever more attentive to guard against the access 
of flood or fire. If He should but touch their pro- 
spective theories of improvement, they would renounce 
them, as defiled and fit only for vulgar fanaticism. 
Their system of Providence would be profaned by the 
intrusion of the Almighty. Man is to effect an apo- 
theosis for himself, by the hopeful process of exhausting 
his corruptions. And should it take a long series of 
ages, vices, and woes, to reach this glorious attainment, 
patience may sustain itself the while by the thought 
that when it is realized, it will be burdened with no 
duty of religious gratitude. No time is too long to 
wait, no cost too deep to incur, for the triumph of 
proving that we have no need of a Divinity, regarded 
as possessing that one attribute which makes it delight- 
ful to acknowledge such a Being, the benevolence that 
would make us happy. But even if this noble self- 
sufficiency cannot be realized, the independence of 
spirit which has laboured for it must not sink at last 
into piety. This afflicted world, " this poor terrestrial 
citadel of man," is to lock its gates, and keep its 
miseries, rather than admit the degradation of receiv- 
ing help from God. 

I wish it were not true that even men who firmly 
believe in the general doctrine of the divine govern- 
ment of the world, are often betrayed into the 
impiety of attaching an excessive importance to human 
agency in its events. How easily a creature of their 

N 



178 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

own species is transformed by a sympathetic pride into 
a God before them ! If what they deem the cause of 
truth and justice, advances with a splendid front of 
distinguished names of legislators, or patriots, or martial 
heroes, it must then and must therefore triumph ; 
nothing can withstand such talents, accompanied by 
the zeal of so many faithful adherents. If these shining 
insects of fame are crushed, or sink into the despicable 
reptiles of corruption, alas, then, for the cause of truth 
and justice ! All this while, there is no due reference 
to the " Blessed and only Potentate." If, however, the 
foundations of their religious faith have not been 
shaken, and they possess any docility to the lessons 
of time, they will after aw T hile be taught to withdraw 
their dependence and confidence from all subordinate 
agents, and habitually regard the Supreme Being as 
the sole possessor of real and absolute power. 

Perhaps it is not improbable, that the grand moral 
improvements of a future age may be accomplished in 
a manner that shall leave nothing to man but humi- 
lity and grateful adoration. His pride so obstinately 
ascribes to himself whatever good is effected on the 
globe, that perhaps the Deity will evince his own 
interposition, by events as evidently independent of 
the might of man as the rising of the sun. It may be 
that some of them may take place in a manner but 
little connected even with human operation. Or if 
the activity of men shall be employed as the means 
of producing all of them, there will probably be as 
palpable a disproportion between the instruments and 
the events, as there was between the rod of Moses and 
the amazing phaenomena which followed when it was 
stretched forth. No Israelite was foolish enough to 
ascribe to the rod the power that divided the sea ; nor 
will the witnesses of the moral wonders to come attribute 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 179 

them to man. " Not by might, nor by power, but by 
my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." 

I hope these extended observations will not appear 
like an attempt to exhibit the whole stock of means, as 
destitute of all value, and the industrious application 
of them as a labour without reward. It is not to 
depreciate a thing, if, in the attempt to ascertain its 
real magnitude, it is proved to be little. It is no 
injustice to mechanical powers, to say that slender 
machines will not move rocks and massive timbers ; 
nor to chemical ones, to assert that though an earth- 
quake may fling a promontory from its basis, the explo- 
sion of a canister of gunpowder will not. — Between 
moral forces also, and the objects to which they are to 
be applied, there are constituted measures of propor- 
tion ; and it would seem an obvious principle of good 
sense, that an estimate moderately correct of the value 
of each of our means according to those measures, as 
far as they can be ascertained, should precede every 
application of them. Such an estimate has no place 
in a mind under the ascendency of imagination, which, 
therefore, by extravagantly magnifying the virtue of 
its means, inflates its projects with hopes which may 
justly be called romantic. The best corrective of such 
irrational expectation is an appeal to experience. 
There is an immense record of experiments, which will 
assign the force of almost all the engines, as worked 
by human hands, in the whole moral magazine. And 
if a man expects any one of them to produce a greater 
effect than ever before, it must be because the talents 
of him that repeats the trial are believed to transcend 
those of all former experimenters, or else because the 
season appears more auspicious. 

The estimate of the power of means, which comes 
in answer to the appeal to experience, is indeed most 

N 2 



180 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

humiliating; but what then ? It is a humble thing to 
be a man. The feebleness of means is, in fact, the 
feebleness of him that employs them ; for instruments 
to all human apprehension the most inconsiderable, 
can produce the most prodigious effects when wielded 
by celestial powers. Till, then, the time shall arrive 
for us to attain a nobler rank of existence, we must be 
content to work on the present level of our nature, 
and effect that little which we can effect; unless it be 
greater magnanimity and piety to resolve that because 
our powers are limited to do only little things, they shall 
therefore, as if in revenge for such an economy, do 
nothing. Our means will do something ; that some- 
thing is what they were meant to be adequate to in 
our hands, and not some indefinitely greater effect, 
which we may all be tempted to wish, and which a 
sanguine visionary confidently expects. 

This disproportion between the powers and means 
with which mortals are confined to work, and the great 
objects which good men would desire to accomplish, 
is a part of the appointments of Him who determined 
all the relations in the universe ; and he will see to the 
consequences. For the present, he seems to say to his 
servants, " Forbear to inquire why so small a part of 
those objects to which I have summoned your activity, 
is placed within the reach of your powers. Your feeble 
ability for action is not accompanied by such a capacity 
of understanding, as would be requisite to comprehend 
why that ability was made no greater. Though it had 
been made incomparably greater, would there not still 
have been objects before it too vast for its operation ? 
Must not the highest of created beings still have some- 
thing in view, which they feel they can but partially 
accomplish till the sphere of their active force be en- 
larged ? Must there not be an end of improvement in 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 181 

ray creation, if the powers of my creatures had become 
perfectly equal to the magnitude of their designs ? 
How mean must be the spirit of that being that would 
not make an effort now, toward the accomplishment of 
something higher than he will be able to accomplish 
till hereafter. Because mightier labourers would have 
been requisite to effect all that you wish, will you 
murmur that I have honoured you, the inferior ones, 
with the appointment of making a noble exertion with 
however limited success ? If there is but little power 
in your hands, is it not because I retain the power in 
mine ? Are you afraid lest that power should fail to 
do all things right, only because you are so little made 
its instruments ? Be grateful that all the work is not 
to be done without you, and that God employs you in 
that in which he also is employed. But remember, that 
while the employment is yours, the success is altogether 
his ; and that your diligence therefore, and not the 
measure of effect which it produces, will be the test of 
your characters. Good men have been employed in all 
ages under the same economy of inadequate means, and 
what appeared to them inconsiderable success. Go to 
your labours : every sincere effort will infallibly be one 
step more in your own progress to a perfect state ; and 
as to the Cause, when / see it necessary for a God to 
interpose in his own manner, I will come." 

I might deem a train of observations of the melancholy 
hue which shades some of the latter pages of this essay 
of too depressive a tendency, were I not convinced that 
a serious exhibition of the feebleness of human agency 
in relation to all great objects, may aggravate the im- 
pression, often so insufficient, of the absolute supremacy 
of God, of the total dependence of all mortal strength 
and effort on him, and of the necessity of maintaining 
habitually a devout respect to his intervention. It 



182 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

might promote that last attainment of a zealously good 
man, the resignation to be as diminutive and as im- 
perfectly successful an agent as God pleases. I am 
assured also that, in a pious mind, the humiliating 
estimate of means and human sufficiency, and the con- 
sequent sinking down of all lofty expectations founded 
on them, will leave one single mean, and that far the 
best of all, to be held not only of undiminished but of 
more eminent value than ever was ascribed to it before. 
The most excellent of all human means must be that 
of which the effect is to obtain the exertion of divine 
power. The means which are to be employed in a direct 
immediate instrumentality toward the end, seem to bear 
such a measured proportion to their objects, as to assign 
and limit the probable effect. This regulated propor- 
tion exists no longer, and therefore the possible effects 
become too great for calculation, when that expedient is 
solemnly employed which is appointed as the mean of 
engaging the divine energy to act on the object. If the 
only means by which Jehoshaphat sought to overcome 
his superior enemy, had been his troops, horses, and 
arms, there would have been nearly an assignable pro- 
portion between these means and the end, and the pro- 
bable result of the conflict would have been a matter 
of ordinary calculation. But when he said, " Neither 
know we what to do, but our eyes are up unto thee," 
he moved (if I may reverently express it so) another 
and an infinite force to invade the host of Moab and 
Ammon ; and the consequence displayed in their camp, 
the difference between an irreligious leader, who could 
fight only with arms and on the level of the plain, and 
a pious one who could thus assault from Heaven. It 
may not, I own, be perfectly correct to cite, in illus- 
tration of the efficacy of prayer, the most memorable 
ancient examples. Nor is it needful, since the expe- 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 183 

rience of devout and eminently rational men, in latter 
times, has supplied numerous striking instances of im- 
portant advantages so connected in time and circum- 
stance with prayer, that with good reason they regarded 
them as the evident result of it.* This experience, 
taken in confirmation of the assurances of the Bible, 
warrants ample expectations of the efficacy of an earnest 
and habitual devotion ; provided still, as I need not 
remind you, that this mean be employed as the grand 
auxiliary of the other means, and not alone, till all the 
rest are exhausted or impracticable. And no doubt 
any man who should, amidst his serious projects, become 
sensible, with any thing approaching to an adequate 
apprehension, of his dependence on God, would far 
more earnestly and constantly press on this great re- 
source than is common even among good men. He 
would as little, without it, promise himself any distin- 
guished success, as a mariner would expect to reach a 
distant coast by means of his sails spread in a stagnation 
of the air. — I have intimated my fear that it is visionary 
to expect an unusual success in the human administra- 
tion of religion, unless there were unusual omens ; now 
an emphatical spirit of prayer would be such an omen ; 
and the individual who should solemnly resolve to make 
proof of its last possible efficacy, might probably find 
himself becoming a much more prevailing agent of 
good in his little sphere. And if the whole, or the 
greater number, of the disciples of Christianity, were, 
with an earnest unfailing resolution of each, to combine 
that Heaven should not withhold one single influence 
which the very utmost effort of conspiring and perse- 
vering supplication would obtain, it would be the sign 
of a revolution of the world being at hand. 

• Here I shall not be misunderstood to believe the multitude of 
stories which have been told by deluded fancy,or detestable imposture. 



184 



ON THE APPLICATION OF 



My dear friend, it is quite time to dismiss this whole 
subject ; though it wall probably appear to you that I 
have entirely lost and forgotten the very purpose for 
which I took it up, which certainly was to examine the 
correctness of some not unusual applications of the 
epithet Romantic. It seemed necessary, first, to de- 
scribe, with some exemplifications, the characteristics 
of that extravagance which ought to be given up to 
the charge. The attempt to do this, has led me into 
a length of detail far beyond all expectation. The 
intention was, next, to display and to vindicate, in an 
extended illustration, several schemes of life, and models 
of character ; but I will not prolong the subject. I 
shall only just specify, in concluding, two or three of 
those modes of feeling and action on which the censure 
of being romantic has improperly fallen. 

One is, a disposition to take high examples for imi- 
tation. I have condemned the extravagance which 
presumes on rivalling the career of action and success 
that has been the appointment of some individuals, so 
extraordinary as to be the most conspicuous phenomena 
of history. But this delirium of ambitious presumption 
is distinguishable enough from the more temperate, 
yet warm aspiration to attain some resemblance to ex- 
amples, which it will require the most strenuous and 
sustained exertion to resemble. Away with any such 
sobriety and rationality as would repress the disposition 
to contemplate with a generous emulation the class of 
men who have been illustrious for their excellence and 
their wisdom ; to observe with interested self-reference 
the principles that animated them and the process of 
their attainments ; and to fix the standard of character 
high by keeping these exemplars in view. A man may, 
without a presumptuous estimate of his talents, or 
the expectation of passing through any course of un- 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 185 

exampled events, indulge the ambition to resemble and 
follow, in the essential determination of their charac- 
ters, those sublime spirits who are now removed to the 
kingdom where they are to " shine as the stars for ever 
and ever," and those yet on earth who are evidently on 
their way to the same illustrious end. 

A striking departure from the order of custom in 
the rank to which a man belongs, exhibited in his 
devoting the privileges of that rank to a mode of ex- 
cellence which the generality of the people who compose 
it never dreamed to be a duty, will by them be de- 
nominated and scouted as romantic. They will wonder 
why a man who ought to be like themselves, should 
affect quite a different style of life, a deserter and alien 
from the reign of fashion, should attempt unusual plans 
of doing good, and should put himself under some ex- 
traordinary discipline of virtue — while yet every point 
in his system maybe a dictate of reason and conscience, 
speaking in a voice heard by him alone. 

The irreligious will apply this epithet to the determi- 
nation to make, and the zeal to inculcate, great exer- 
tions and sacrifices for a purely moral ideal reward. 
Some gross and palpable prize is requisite to excite 
their energies ; and therefore self-denial repaid by con- 
science, beneficence without fame, and the delight of 
resembling the Divinity, appear visionary felicities. 

The epithet will be in readiness for application to a 
man who feels it an imperious duty to realize, as far as 
possible, and as soon as possible, every thing which he 
approves and applauds in theory. You will often hear 
a circle of perhaps respectable persons agreeing en- 
tirely that this one thing spoken of is a worthy principle 
of action, and that other an estimable quality, and a 
third a sublime excellence, who would be amazed at 
your fanaticism, if you were to adjure them thus : " My 



186 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

friends, from this moment you are bound, from this 
moment we are all bound, on peril of the displeasure 
of God, to realize in ourselves, to the last possible 
extent, all that we have thus in good faith deliberately 
applauded." Through some fatal defect of conscience, 
there is a very general feeling, regarding the high 
order of moral and religious attainments, that though it 
is a happv exaltation to possess them, yet it is perfectly 
safe to stop contented where we are, on a far lower 
ground. One is confounded to hear irritable persons 
praising a character of self-command ; persons who 
trifle away their days professing to admire the instances 
of a strenuous improvement of time ; rich persons 
lavishing fine words on examples of beneficence which 
they know to be far surpassing themselves, though 
perhaps with no larger means ; and all expressing deep 
respect for the men who have been most eminent in 
piety ; — and yet all this apparently with the ease of a 
perfect freedom from any admonition of conscience, 
that they are themselves standing in the very serious 
predicament of having to choose, whether they will 
henceforward earnestly and practically aim at these 
higher attainments, or resign themselves to be found 
wanting in the day of final account. 

Finally, in the application of this epithet, but little 
allowance is generally made for the great difference 
between a man's entertaining high designs and hopes 
for himself alone, and his entertaining them relative to 
other persons. It might be very romantic for a man 
to reckon on effecting such designs with respect to 
others, as it may be reasonable to meditate for himself. 
If he feels the powerful habitual impulse of conviction, 
urging and animating him to the highest attainments 
of wisdom and excellence, he may perhaps justly hope 
to approach them himself, though it would be most 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 187 

extravagant to extend the same hope to all the persons 
to whom he may wish and try to impart the impulse. 
I specify the strictly personal attainments, wisdom and 
excellence, for the reason that, besides the difference, 
in probability of realization, between large schemes 
and hopes as indulged by a man for himself or enter- 
tained for others, there is a distinction to be made in 
respect to such as he might entertain only for himself. 
His extraordinary plans and expectations for himself 
might be of such a nature as to depend on other persons 
for their accomplishment, and might therefore be as 
extravagant as if other persons alone, persons in no 
degree at his command, had been their object. Or, 
on the contrary, they may be of a kind which shall 
not need the co-operation of other persons, and may 
be realized independently of their will. The design of 
acquiring immense riches, or becoming the commander 
of an army, or a person of high official importance in 
national affairs, must in its progress be dependent on 
other men in incalculably too many points and ways 
for a considerate man to presume that he shall be fortu- 
nate in them all. But the schemes of eminent personal 
improvement, depending comparatively little on the 
will, capacity, or conduct of other persons, are romantic 
only when there is some fatal intellectual or moral 
defect in the individual himself who has adopted them. 



ESSAY IV. 

ON SOME OF THE CAUSES BY WHICH EVANGELICAL 
RELIGION HAS BEEN RENDERED UNACCEPTABLE 
TO PERSONS OF CULTIVATED TASTE. 



LETTER I. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

It is striking to observe, under what various forms of 
character men are passing through this introductory- 
season of their being, to enter on its future greater 
stage. Some one of these, it may be presumed, is 
more eligible than all the rest for proceeding to that 
greater stage ; and to ascertain which it is, must be 
felt by a wise man the most important of his inquiries. 
We, my friend, are persuaded that the inquiry, if made 
in good faith, will soon terminate, and that the chris- 
tian character will be selected as the only one, in which 
it is wise to advance to the entrance on the endless 
futurity. Indeed the assurance of our permanent 
existence itself rests but on that authority which dic- 
tates also the right introduction to it. 

The christian character is simply a conformity to 
the whole religion of Christ. This implies a cordial 
admission of that whole religion ; but it meets, on the 
contrary, in many minds not denying it to be a com- 
munication from God, a disposition to shrink from 



AVERSION TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 189 

some of its peculiar properties and distinctions, or an 
effort to displace or neutralize them. I am not now to 
learn that the substantial cause of this is that repug- 
nance in human nature to what is purely divine, which 
revelation affirms, and all history proves, and which 
perhaps some of the humiliating points of the christian 
system are more adapted to provoke, than any other 
thing that bears the divine impress. Nor do I need 
to be told how much this chief cause has aided and 
aggravated the power of those subordinate ones, which 
may have conspired to prevent the success of evangelical 
religion among a class of persons that I have in view, 
I mean those of refined taste, whose feelings, concern- 
ing what is great and excellent, have been disciplined 
to accord to a literary or philosophical standard. But 
even had there been less of this natural aversion in 
such minds, or had there been none, some of the causes 
which have acted on them would have tended, neces- 
sarily, to produce an effect injurious to the claims of 
pure Christianity. — I wish to illustrate several of these 
causes, after briefly describing the antichristian feelings 
in which I have observed that effect. 

It is true that many persons of taste have, without 
any formal disbelief of the christian truth, so little con- 
cern about religion in any shape, that the unthinking 
dislike to the evangelical principles, occasionally rising 
and passing among their transient moods of feeling 
with no distinctness of apprehension, hardly deserves 
to be described. These are to be assigned, whatever 
may be their faculties or improvements, to the multi- 
tude of triflers relatively to the gravest concerns, on 
whom we can pronounce only the general condemna- 
tion of irreligion, their feelings not being sufficiently 
marked for a more discriminative censure. But the 
aversion is of a more defined character, as it exists in 



190 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

a mind too serious for the follies of the world and the 
neglect of all religion, and in which the very sentiment 
itself becomes, at times, the subject of painful and 
apprehensive reflection, from an internal monition that 
it is an unhappy symptom, if the truth should be that 
the religious system which excites the displacency, has 
really the sanction of divine revelation. If a person 
in this condition of mind disclosed himself to you, he 
would describe how the elevated sentiment, inspired by 
the contemplation of other sublime subjects, is con- 
founded, and sinks mortified into the heart, when this 
new subject is presented to his view. It seems to 
require almost a total change of his mental habits to 
admit this as the most interesting subject of all, while 
yet he dares not reject the authority which supports 
its claim. The dignity of religion, as a general and 
refined speculation, he may have long acknowledged ; 
but it appears to him as if it lost that aspect of dignity, 
in taking the specific form of the evangelical system ; 
just as if an ethereal being were reduced to combine 
his radiance and subtility with an earthly conformation. 
He is aware that religion in the abstract, or in other 
words, the principles which constitute the obligatory 
relation of all intelligent creatures to the Supreme 
Being, must receive a special modification, by means 
of the addition of some other principles, in order to 
become a peculiar religious economy for a particular 
race of those creatures, especially for a race low in 
rank and corrupted in nature. And the christian reve- 
lation assigns the principles by which this religion in 
the abstract, the religion of the universe, is thus modi- 
fied into the peculiar form required for the nature and 
condition of man. But when he contemplates some of 
these principles, framed on an assumption, and con- 
veying a plain declaration of an ignominious and 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 191 

deplorable condition of our nature, he can hardly help 
regretting that, even if our condition be so degraded, 
the system of our relations with the Divinity, though 
constituted according and in adaptation to that degraded 
state, is not an economy of a brighter character. The 
gospel indeed appears to him like the image in Nebu- 
chadnezzar's dream ; it is refulgent with a head of gold ; 
the sublime truths or facts of religious theory, which 
stand antecedent and superior to every peculiarity of the 
special dispensations of religion, are luminously exhi- 
bited ; but the doctrines which are added as distinctive 
of the peculiar circumstances of the christian economy, 
appear less splendid, and as if descending towards the 
qualities of iron and clay. If he must admit this por- 
tion of the system as a part of the truth, his feelings 
amount to the wish that a different theory had been true. 
It is therefore with a degree of shrinking reluctance that 
he sometimes adverts to the ideas peculiar to the gospel. 
He would willingly lose this specific scheme of doc- 
trines in a more general theory of religion, instead of 
resigning every wider speculation for this scheme, in 
which God has comprised, and distinguished by a very 
peculiar character, all the religion which he wills to 
be known, or to be useful, to our world. It is not a 
welcome conviction, that the gospel, instead of being 
a modification of religion exhibited in competition with 
others, and subject to choice or rejection according to 
his taste, is peremptorily and exclusively the religion 
for our lapsed race ; insomuch that he who has not a 
religion conformed to the model in the New Testament 
does not stand in the only right and safe relation to 
the Supreme Being. He suffers himself to pass the 
year in a dissatisfied uncertainty, and a criminal neglect 
of deciding, whether his cold reception of the specific 
views of Christianity will render unavailing his regard 



192 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

for those more general truths, respecting the Deity, 
moral rectitude, and a future state, which are neces- 
sarily at the basis of the system. He is afraid to 
examine and determine the question, whether he may 
with impunity rest in a scheme composed of the general 
principles of wisdom and virtue, selected from the 
christian oracles and the speculations of philosophy, 
harmonized by reason, and embellished by taste. If 
it were safe, he would much rather be the dignified 
professor of such a philosophic refinement on Chris- 
tianity, than yield himself a submissive and wholly 
conformed disciple of Jesus Christ. This refined 
system would be clear of the undesirable peculiarities 
of christian doctrine, and it would also allow some 
different ideas of the nature of moral excellence. He 
would not be so explicitly condemned for indulging 
a disposition to admire and imitate some of those 
models of character which, however opposite to pure 
christian excellence, the world has always idolized. 

I wish I could display, in the most forcible manner, 
the considerations which show how far such a state of 
mind is wrong. But my object is, to remark on a few 
of the causes which may have contributed to it. 

I do not, for a moment, place among these causes 
that continual dishonour which the religion of Christ 
has suffered through the corrupted institutions, and the 
depraved character of individuals or communities, of 
what is called the christian world. Such a man as I 
have supposed, understands what the dictates and ten- 
dency of that religion really are, so far at least, that in 
contemplating the bigotry, persecution, hypocrisy, and 
worldly ambition, which have been forced as an oppro- 
brious adjunct on Christianity during all ages of its 
occupancy on earth, his mind dissevers, by a decisive 
glance of thought, all these evils, and the pretended 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 193 

christians who are accountable for them, from the 
religion which is as distinct from them as the Spirit 
that pervades all things is pure from matter and from 
sin. In his view, these odious things and these wicked 
men, that have arrogated and defiled the christian name, 
sink out of sight through a chasm like Korah, Dathan, 
and Abiram, and leave the camp and the cause holy, 
though they leave the numbers small. It needs so 
very moderate a share of discernment, in a protestant 
country at least, where a well-known volume exhibits 
the religion itself, genuine and entire as it came from, 
heaven, to perceive the essential disunion and antipathy 
between it and all these abominations, that to take them 
as congenial and inseparable, betrays, in every instance, 
a detestable want of principle, or a most wretched 
want of sense. The defect of cordiality toward the 
religion of Christ, in the persons that I am accusing, 
does not arise from this debility or this injustice. They 
would not be less equitable to Christianity than they 
would to some estimable man, whom they would not 
esteem the less because villains that hated him, knew, 
however, so well the excellence of his name and cha- 
racter, as gladly to avail themselves of them in any 
way they could to aid their schemes, or to shelter their 
crimes. — But indeed these remarks are not strictly to 
the purpose ; since the prejudice which a weak or 
corrupt mind receives from such a view of the christian 
history, operates, as we see by facts, not diseriminately. 
against particular characteristics of Christianity, but 
against the whole system, and leads toward a denial of 
its divine origin. On the contrary, the class of persons 
now in question fully admit its divine authority, but 
feel a repugnance to some of its most peculiar dis- 
tinctions. These peculiarities they may wish, as I 
have said, to refine away ; but in moments of impartial 

o 



194* ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

seriousness, are constrained to admit something very- 
near at least to the conviction, of their being inseparable 
from the sacred economy. This however fails to subdue 
or conciliate the heart ; and the dislike to some of the 
parts has often an influence on the affections in regard 
to the whole. That portion of the system which they 
think they could admire, is admitted with the coldness 
of a mere speculative assent, from the effect of the 
intruding recollection of its being combined with some- 
thing else which they cannot admire. Those distinctions 
from which they recoil, are chiefly comprised in that 
view of Christianity which, among a large proportion 
of the professors of it, is denominated in a somewhat 
specific sense, Evangelical ; and therefore I have adopted 
this denomination in the title of this letter. Christianity 
taken in this view contains — a humiliating estimate of 
the moral condition of man, as a being radically corrupt 
— the doctrine of redemption from that condition by 
the merit and sufferings of Christ — the doctrine of a 
divine influence being necessary to transform the cha- 
racter of the human mind, in order to prepare it for a 
higher station in the universe — and a grand moral 
peculiarity by which it insists on humility, penitence, 
and a separation from the spirit and habits of the 
world. — I do not see any necessity for a more formal 
and amplified description of that mode of understanding 
Christianity which has acquired the distinctive epithet 
Evangelical ; and which is not, to say the least, more 
discriminatively designated among the scoffing part of 
the wits, critics, and theologians of the day, by the 
terms Fanatical, Calvinistical, Methodistical. 

I may here notice that, though the greater share of 
the injurious influences on which I may remark operates 
more pointedly against the peculiar doctrines of Chris- 
tianity, yet some of them are perniciously effectual 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 195 

against its moral sentiments and laws, which are off a 
tenour corresponding to the principles it prescribes to 
our faith. I would observe also, that though I have 
specified the more refined and intellectual class of minds, 
as indisposed to the religion of Christ by the causes 
on which I may comment, and though I keep them 
chiefly in view, yet the influence of some of these 
causes extends in a degree to many persons of sub- 
ordinate mental rank. 



LETTER II. 

In the view of an intelligent and honest mind the 
religion of Christ stands as clear of all connexion with 
the corruption of men, and churches, and ages, as when 
it was first revealed. It retains its purity like Moses 
in Egypt, or Daniel in Babylon, or the Saviour of the 
world himself while he mingled with scribes and phari- 
sees, or publicans and sinners. But though it thus 
instantly and totally separates itself from all appearance 
of relation to the vices of bad men, a degree of effort 
may be required in order to display it, or to view it in 
an equally perfect separation from the weakness of good 
ones. It is in reality no more identified with the one 
than with the other ; its essential sublimity is as in- 
capable of being reduced to littleness, as its purity is 
of uniting with vice. But it may have a vital con- 
nexion with a weak mind, while it necessarily disowns 
a wicked one; and the qualities of that mind with 
which it confessedly unites itself, will much more seem 
to adhere to it, than of that with which all its principles 
are plainly in antipathy. It will be more natural to 
take those persons who are acknowledged the real 
subjects of its influence, as illustrations of its nature, 

o2 



196 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

than those on whom it is the heaviest reproach that 
they pretend to be its friends. The perception of its 
nature and dignity must be clear and absolute, in the 
man who can observe it under the appearance it acquires 
in intimate combination with the thoughts, feelings, 
and language of its disciples, without ever losing sight 
of its own essential qualities and lustre. No possible 
associations indeed can diminish the grandeur of some 
parts of the christian system. The doctrine of im- 
mortality, for instance, cannot be reduced to take even 
a transient appearance of littleness, by the meanest or 
most uncouth words and images that shall ever be 
employed to represent it. But some other things in 
the system have not the same obvious philosophic 
dignity ; and these are capable of acquiring, from the 
mental defects of their believers, such associations as 
will give a character much at variance with our ideas 
of magnificence, to so much as they constitute of the 
evangelical economy. One of the causes therefore 
which I meant to notice, as having excited in persons 
of taste a sentiment unfavourable to the reception of 
evangelical religion, is, that this is the religion of many 
weak and uncultivated minds. 

The schools of philosophy have been composed of 
men of superior faculties and extensive accomplish- 
ments, who could sustain, by eloquence and capacious 
thought, the dignity of the favourite themes ; so that 
the proud distinctions of the disciples and advocates 
appeared as the attributes of the doctrines. The adepts 
could attract refined and aspiring spirits by proclaiming, 
that the temple of their goddess was not profaned by 
being a rendezvous for vulgar men. On the contrary, 
it is the beneficent distinction of the gospel, that though 
it is of a magnitude to interest and to surpass angelic 
investigation, (and therefore assuredly to pour contempt 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 197 

on the pride of human intelligence rejecting it for its 
meanness,) it is yet most expressly sent to the class 
which philosophers have always despised. And a good 
man feels it a cause of grateful joy, that a communi- 
cation has come from heaven, adapted to effect the 
happiness of multitudes in spite of natural debility or 
neglected education. While he observes that confined 
capacities do not preclude the entrance, and the perma- 
nent residence, of that sacred combination of truth and 
power, which finds no place in the minds of many phi- 
losophers, and wits, and statesmen, he is grateful to 
him who has " hidden these things from the wise and 
prudent, and revealed them to babes." 

But it is not to be denied that the natural conse- 
quence follows. Contracted and obscured in its abode, 
the inhabitant will appear, as the sun through a misty 
sky, with but little of its magnificence, to a man who 
can be content to receive his impression of the intel- 
lectual character of the religion from the form of its 
manifestation made from the minds of its disciples ; 
and, in doing so, can indolently and perversely allow 
himself to regard its weakest display as its truest image. 
In taking such a dwelling, the religion seems to imitate 
what was prophesied of its Author, that, when he 
should be seen, there would be no beauty that he 
should be desired. This humiliation is inevitable ; for 
unless miracles were wrought, to impart to the less in- 
tellectual disciples an enlarged power of thinking, the 
evangelic truth must accommodate itself to the di- 
mensions and habitudes of their minds. And perhaps 
the exhibitions of it will come forth with more of the 
character of those minds, than of its own celestial dis- 
tinctions : insomuch that if there were no declaration 
of the sacred system, but in the forms of conception 
and language in which they give it forth, even a candid 



i9S ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

man might hesitate to admit it as the most glorious gift 
of heaven. Happily, he finds its quality declared by 
other oracles; but while from them he receives it in 
its own character, he is tempted to wish he could 
detach it from all the associations which he feels it has 
acquired from the humbler exhibition. And he does 
not greatly wonder that other men of the same intel- 
lectual habits, and with a less candid solicitude to 
receive with simplicity every thing that really comes 
from God, should have admitted a prejudice from these 
associations. 

They would not make this impression on a man 
already devoted to the religion of Jesus Christ. No 
passion that has become predominant is ever cooled by 
any thing which can be associated with its object, while 
that object itself continues unaltered. The passion is 
even willing to verify its power, and the merit of that 
which interests it, by sometimes letting the unpleasing 
associations surround and touch the object for an 
instant, and then chasing them away ; and it welcomes 
with augmented attachment that object coming forth 
from them unstained ; as happy spirits at the last day 
will receive with joy their bodies recovered from the 
dust in a state of purity that will leave every thing 
belonging to the dust behind. A zealous christian 
exults to feel in contempt of how many counteracting 
circumstances he can still love his religion ; and that 
this counteraction, by exciting his understanding to 
make a more denned estimate of its excellence, has 
resulted in his loving it the more. It has now in some 
degree even pre-occupied those avenues of taste and 
imagination, by which alone the ungracious effect of 
associations could have been admitted. The thing 
itself is close to his mind, and therefore the causes 
which would have misrepresented it by coming between, 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 199 

have lost their power. As he clears the sentiments of 
sincere Christianity from the weak and illiterate, he 
says to himself — All this is indeed little, but I am 
happy to feel that the subject itself is great, and that 
this humble display of it cannot make it appear to me 
different from what I absolutely know it to be ; any 
more than a clouded atmosphere can diminish my idea 
of the grandeur of the heavens, after I have so often 
beheld the pure azure, and the host of stars. I am 
glad that it has in this man all the consolatory and all 
the purifying efficacy, which I wish that my more 
elevated views of it may not fail to have in me. This 
is the chief end for which a divine communication can 
have been granted to the world. If this religion, instead 
of being designed to make its disciples pure and happy 
amidst their littleness, had required to receive lustre 
from their mental dignity, it would have been sent to 
none of us. At least, not to me ; for though I would 
be grateful for my intellectual advantage over my un- 
cultivated fellow-christian, I am conscious that the 
noblest forms of thought in which I apprehend, or 
could represent, the subject, do but contract its am- 
plitude, do but depress its sublimity. Those superior 
spirits who are said to rejoice over the first proof of 
the efficacy of divine truth, have rejoiced over its in- 
troduction, even in so humble a form, into the mind 
of this man, and probably see in fact but little dif- 
ference, in point of speculative greatness, between his 
manner of viewing and illustrating it and mine. 1 ? 
Jesus Christ could be on earth as before, he would 
receive this disciple, and benignantly approve, for its 
operation on the heart, that faith in his doctrines, which 
men of taste might be tempted to despise for its want 
of intellectual refinement. And since all his true dis- 
ciples are destined to attain greatness at length, the 



200 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

time is coming, when each pious, though now contracted 
mind, will do justice to this high subject. Meanwhile, 
such as this subject will appear to the intelligence of 
immortals, and such as it will be/ expressed in their 
eloquence, such it really is now ; and I should deplore 
the perversity of my mind, if I felt more disposed to 
take the character of the religion from that style of its 
exhibition in which it appears humiliated, than from 
that in which I am assured it will be sublime. If, while 
we are all advancing to meet the revelations of eternity, 
I have a more vivid and comprehensive idea than these 
less privileged christians, of the glory of our religion, as 
displayed in the New Testament, and if I can much more 
delightfully participate the sentiments which devout 
genius has uttered in the contemplation of it, I am 
therefore called upon to excel them as much in devo- 
tedness to this religion, as I have a more luminous 
view of its excellence. 

Let the spirit of the evangelical system once have 
the ascendency, and it may thus defy the threatening 
mischief of disagreeable associations with its principles; 
as the angels in the house of Lot repelled the base assail- 
ants. But it requires a most extraordinary cogency of 
conviction, and indeed more than simple intellectual con- 
viction, to obtain a cordial reception for these principles, 
if such associations are in prepossession of the mind. 
And that they should be so in the man of taste is not 
wonderful, if you consider how early, how often, and 
by what diversities of the same general cause, they 
may have been made on him. As the gospel comprises 
an ample assemblage of intellectual views, and as the 
greater number of christians are inevitably incapable 
of presenting them in a dignified character of con- 
ception and language from the same causes which 
disqualify them to do such justice to other intellectual 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 201 

subjects, it is not improbable that far the greater 
number of expressions which he has heard in his whole 
life, have been utterly below the subject. Obviously 
this is a very serious circumstance ; for if he had heard as 
much spoken on any other subject of high intellectual 
rank, as moral philosophy, or poetry, or rhetoric, in which 
perhaps he now takes great interest, and if a similar pro- 
portion of what he had heard had been as much below 
the subject, it is probable that he and the subject would 
have remained strangers. And it is a melancholy depo- 
sition against the human heart, that fewer unfavourable 
associations will cause it to recoil from the gospel, than 
from any other subject which comes with high claims. 

The prejudicial influence of mental deficiency or 
meanness associated with evangelical doctrine, may 
have beset him in many ways. For instance, he has 
met with some zealous christians, who not only were 
very slightly acquainted with the evidences of the truth, 
and the illustrations of the reasonableness, of their 
religion, but who actually felt no interest in the inquiry. 
Perhaps more than one individual attempted to deter 
him from pursuing it, by suggesting that inquiry either 
implies doubt, which was pronounced a criminal state 
of mind, or will probably lead to it, as a judgment on 
the profane inquisitiveness which, on such a subject, is 
not satisfied with implicitly believing. An attempt to 
examine the foundation would be likely to end in a 
wish to demolish the structure. 

He may sometimes have heard the discourse of 
sincere christians, whose religion involved no intel- 
lectual exercise, and, strictly speaking, no subject of 
intellect. Separately from their feelings, it had no 
definition, no topics, no distinct succession of views. 
And if he or some other person attempted to talk on 
some part of the religion itself, as a thing definable and 



202 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

important, independently of the feelings of any indi- 
vidual, and as consisting in a vast congeries of ideas, 
concerning the divine government of the world, the 
relations of rational creatures with the Creator, the 
general nature of the economy disclosed by the Messiah, 
the system of moral principles and rules, and the 
greatness of the future prospects of man, they seemed 
to have no concern in that religion, and impatiently 
interrupted such discourse with the observation —That 
is not experience. 

Others he has heard continually recurring to two or 
three points of opinion, adopted perhaps in servile ad- 
diction to a system, or perhaps by some chance seizure 
of the individual's preference, and asserted to be the 
life and essence of Christianity. These opinions he has 
heard zealously though not argumentatively defended, 
even when they were not attacked or questioned. If 
they were called in question, it was an evidence not 
less of depraved principle than of perverted judgment. 
All other religious truths were represented as deriving 
their authority and importance purely from these, and 
as being so wholly included and subordinate, that it is 
needless and almost impertinent to give them a distinct 
attention. The neglect of constantly repeating and 
enforcing these opinions was said to be the chief cause 
of the comparative failure of the efforts to promote 
Christianity in the world, and of the decay of particular 
religious societies. Though he perhaps could not per- 
ceive how these points were essential to Christianity, 
even admitting them to be true, they were made the 
sole and decisive standard for distinguishing between a 
genuine and a false profession of it. And perhaps they 
were applied in eager haste to any sentiment which he 
happened to express concerning religion, as a test of 
its quality, and a proof of its corruptness. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 203 

Instances may have occurred in which he has ob- 
served some one idea or doctrine, that was not the 
distinctive peculiarity of any system, to have so mono- 
polized the mind, that every conversation, from what- 
ever point of the compass it started, was certain to find 
its way to the favourite topic, while he was sometimes 
fretted, sometimes amused, never much improved, by 
observing its instinctive progress to the appointed place. 
If his situation and connexions rendered it unavoidable 
for him often to hear this unfortunate manner of dis- 
coursing on religion, his mind probably fell into a fault 
very similar to that of his well-meaning acquaintance. 
As this worthy man could never speak on the subject 
without soon bringing the whole of it down to one 
particular point, so the indocile and recusant auditor 
became unable to think on the subject without adverting 
immediately to the narrow illustration of it exhibited 
by this one man ; insomuch that this image of com- 
bined penury and conceit became established in his 
mind as representative of the subject. In consequence 
of this connexion of ideas, he perhaps became dis- 
inclined to think on the subject at all ; or, if he was 
disposed or constrained to think of it, he was so averse 
to let his views of Christianity thus converge to the 
littleness of a point, that he laboured to expand them 
till they lost all specifically evangelical distinctions in 
the wideness of generality and abstraction. 

Again, the majority of christians are precluded, by 
their condition in life, from any considerable acquire- 
ment of general knowledge. It would be unpardonable 
in the more cultivated man not to make the large 
allowance for the natural effect of this on the extent of 
their religious ideas. But it shall have happened, that 
he has met with numbers who had no inconsiderable 
means, both in the way of money, judging by their 



204? ON THE AVERSION Of MEN OF TASTE 

unnecessary expenses, and of leisure, judging by the 
quantity of time consumed in trivial talk, or in needless 
sleep, to furnish their minds with various information, 
but who were quite on a level, in this respect, with 
those of the humblest rank. They never even sus- 
pected that knowledge could have any connexion with 
religion ; or that they could not be as clearly and com- 
prehensively in possession of the great subject as a man 
whose faculties had been exercised, and whose extended 
acquaintance with things would supply an ample diver- 
sity of ideas illustrative of religion. He has perhaps 
even heard them make a kind of merit of their indif- 
ference to knowledge, as if it were the proof or the 
result of a higher value for religion. If there was 
ventured a hint of reprehensive wonder at their reading 
so little, and within so very confined a scope, it would 
be replied, that they thought it enough to read the 
Bible ; as if it were possible for a person whose mind 
fixes with inquisitive attention on what is before him, 
to read through the Bible without thousands of such 
questions being started in his thoughts, as can be 
answered only from sources of information extraneous 
to the Bible. But he perceived that this reading the 
Bible was no work of inquiring thought ; and indeed 
he has commonly found, that those who have no wish 
for any thing like a general improvement in knowledge, 
have no disposition for the real business of thinking 
even in religion, and that their discourse on that subject 
is the exposure of intellectual poverty. He has seen 
them live on for a number of years content with the 
same confined views, the same meagre list of topics, 
and the same uncouth religious language. In so con- 
siderable a space of time, the habitual inquisitiveness 
after various truth would have given much more clear- 
ness to their faculties, and much more precision to the 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 205 

articles of their belief. They might have ramified the 
few leading articles, into a rich variety of subordinate 
principles and important inferences. They might have 
learned to place the christian truth in all those combi- 
nations with the other parts of our knowledge, by which 
it is enabled to present new and striking aspects, and 
to multiply its arguments to the understanding, and 
its appeals to the heart. They might have enriched 
themselves by rendering nature, history, and the present 
views of the moral world, tributary to the illustration 
and the effect of their religion. But they neglected, 
and even despised, all these means of enlarging their 
ideas of a subject which they professed to hold of in- 
finite importance. Yet perhaps, if this man of more 
intellectual habits showed but little interest in con- 
versing with them on that subject, or seemed inten- 
tionally to avoid it, this was considered as pure aversion 
to religion ; and what had been uninteresting to him as 
doctrine, then became revolting as reproof.* 

He may not unfrequently have heard worthy but 
illiterate persons expressing their utmost admiration of 
sayings, passages in books, or public discourses, which 
he could not help perceiving to be hardly sense, or to 
be the dictates of conceit, or to be common-place in- 
flated to fustian. While on the other hand, if he has 
introduced a favourite passage, or an admired book, 
they have perhaps acknowledged no perception of its 
beauty, or expressed a doubt of its tendency, from its 
not being in canonical diction. Or perhaps they have 
directly avowed that they could not understand it, in a 
manner plainly implying that therefore it could be of 
no value. Possibly when he has expressed his high 

* I own that what I said of Jesus Christ's gladly receiving one of 
the humbler intellectual order for his disciple, would be but little 
applicable to some of the characters that I describe. 



206 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

admiration of some of the views of the gospel, not 
ordinarily recognised or exhibited, and bearing what I 
may perhaps call a philosophical aspect, (such, for 
instance, as struck the mind of Rousseau,) he has been 
mortified to find, that some peculiar and even sublime 
distinctions of the religion of Christ are lost to many 
of his disciples, from being of too abstract a kind for 
the apprehension of any but improved and intellectual 
men. 

If he had generally found in those professed christians 
whose mental powers and attainments were small, a 
candid humility, instructing them, while expressing 
their animated gratitude for what acquaintance with 
religion they had been able to attain, and for the im- 
mortal hopes springing from it, to feel that they had 
but a confined view of a subject which is of immense 
variety and magnitude, he might have been too much 
pleased by this amiable temper to be much repelled by 
the defective character of their conceptions and ex- 
pressions. But often, on the contrary, they may have 
shown such a complacent assurance of sufficiency in 
the little sphere, as if it self- evidently comprised every 
thing which it is possible, or which it is of consequence, 
for any mind to see in. the christian religion. They 
were like persons who should doubt the information 
that myriads more of stars can be seen through a tele- 
scope than they ever beheld, and who should have no 
curiosity to try. 

Many christians may have appeared to him to attach 
an extremely disproportionate importance to the precise 
modes of religious observances, not only in the hour of 
controversy respecting them, when they are always ex- 
travagantly magnified, but in the habitual course of 
their religious references. These modes may be either 
such as are adhered to by communities and sects of 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 207 

christians, perhaps as their respective marks of dis- 
tinction from one another ; or any smaller ceremonial 
peculiarities, devised and pleaded for by particular in- 
dividuals or families. 

Certain things in the religious habits of some christians 
may have disgusted him excessively. Every thing which 
could even distantly remind him of grimace, would in- 
evitably do this ; as, for instance, a solemn lifting up 
of the eyes, artificial impulses of the breath, grotesque 
and regulated gestures and postures in religious ex- 
ercises, an affected faltering of the voice, and, I might 
add, abrupt religious exclamations in common discourse, 
though they were even benedictions to the Almighty, 
which he has often heard so ill-timed as to have an 
irreverent and almost a ludicrous effect. In a man of 
correct and refined taste, the happiest improvement in 
point of veneration for genuine religion will produce 
no tolerance for such habits. Nor will the dislike to 
them be lessened by ever so perfect a conviction of 
the sincere piety of any of the persons who have fallen 
into them. I shall be justified in laying great stress on 
this particular ; for I have known instances of extreme 
mischief done to the feelings relative to religion, in 
young persons especially, through the continued irri- 
tation of disgust caused by such displeasing habits 
deforming personal piety. 

In the conversation of illiterate christians the sup- 
posed man of taste has perhaps frequently heard the 
most unfortunate metaphors and similes, employed to 
explain or enforce evangelical sentiments ; and probably, 
if he twenty times recollected one of those sentiments, 
the repulsive figure was sure to recur to his imagina- 
tion. If he has heard so many of these, that each 
christian topic has acquired its appropriate offensive 
images, you can easily conceive what a lively perception 



208 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

of the importance of the subject itself must be requisite 
to overcome the disgust of the associations. The feeling 
accompanying these topics, as connected with these 
distasteful ideas, will be somewhat like that which 
spoils the pleasure of reading a noble poet, Virgil for 
instance, when each admired passage recalls the phrases 
and images into which it has been degraded in that 
kind of imitation denominated travesty. It may be 
added, that the reluctance to think of the subject 
because it is connected with these ideas, strengthens 
that connexion. For often the striving not to dwell on 
the disagreeable images, produces a mischievous re- 
action by which they press in more forcibly. The 
tenacity with which ideas adhere to the mind, is in 
proportion to the degree of interest, whether pleasing 
or unpleasing, with which they affect it ; and an idea 
cannot well excite a stronger kind of interest than the 
earnest wish to escape from it. If we could cease to 
dislike it, it would soon cease to haunt us. It may 
also be observed, that the infrequency of thinking on 
the evangelical subjects, will confirm the injurious asso- 
ciations. The same mental law prevails in regard to 
subjects as to persons. If any unfortunate incident, or 
any circumstance of expression or conduct, displeased 
us in our first meeting with a person, it will be strongly 
recalled each time that we see him again, if we meet 
him but seldom ; on the contrary, if our intercourse 
become frequent or habitual, such a first unpleasing 
circumstance, and others subsequent to it, may be 
forgotten. This observation might be of some use to 
a man who really wishes to neutralize in his mind the 
offensive associations with evangelical subjects ; as he 
may be assured that one of the most effectual means 
would be, to make those subjects familiar by often 
thinking on them. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 209 

While remarking on the effect of unpleasing images 
employed to illustrate christian principles, I cannot 
help wishing that religious teachers had the good taste 
to avoid amplifying the metaphors of an undignified 
order, which may have a kind of coarse fitness for 
illustration, and are perhaps employed, in a short and 
transient way, in the Bible. I shall notice only that 
common one, in which the benefits and pleasures of 
religion are represented under the image of food. I 
do not recollect that in the Scriptures this metaphor is 
ever drawn to a great length. But from the facility of 
the process, it is not strange that it has been amplified, 
both in books and discourses, into the most extended 
parallel descriptions ; exhausting the dining-room of 
images, and ransacking the language for substantives 
and adjectives, to stimulate the spiritual palate. The 
figure is combined with so many terms in our language, 
that it will unavoidably occur ; and the analogy briefly 
and simply suggested may sometimes assist the thought 
without lessening the subject. But it is degrading to 
spiritual ideas to be extensively and systematically 
transmuted, I might say cooked, into sensual ones. The 
analogy between meaner and more dignified things 
should never be pursued further than one or two points 
of obviously useful illustration ; for, if it be traced to 
every particular in which a resemblance can be found 
or fancied, the meaner thing abdicates its humble office 
of merely indicating some qualities of the great one, 
and becomes formally its representative and equal By 
their being made to touch at all points, the meaner is 
constituted a scale to measure and to limit the magni- 
tude of the superior, and thus the importance of the 
one shrinks to the insignificance of the other. It will 
take some time for a man to recover any great degree 
of solemnity in thinking on the delights or the supports 

p 



210 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

of religion, after he has seen them reduced into all the 
forms of eating and drinking. In such detailed analo- 
gies it often happens, that the most fanciful, or that the 
coarsest points of the resemblance, remain longest in 
the thoughts. When the mind has been taught to 
descend to a low manner of considering divine truth, 
it will be apt to descend to the lowest. There is no 
such violent tendency to abstraction and sublimity, in 
the minds of the generality of readers and hearers, as 
to render it necessary to take any great pains for the 
purpose of retaining their ideas in some degree of 
alliance with matter. 

We are to acknowledge, then, the serious disadvan- 
tage under which evangelical religion presents itself to 
persons of mental refinement, with the associations 
which it has contracted from its uncultivated and in- 
judicious professors. At the same time, it would be 
unjust not to observe that some christians, of a sub- 
ordinate intellectual order, are distinguished by such 
an unassuming simplicity, by so much rectitude of 
conscience, and by a piety so warm and even exalted, 
as to leave a cultivated man convicted of a great per- 
version of feeling, if the faith, of which these are living 
representatives, did not appear to him in stronger at- 
tractive association with their excellence, than in re- 
pulsive association with their intellectual inferiority. 
But I am supposing his mind to be in a perverted state, 
and am far from seeking to defend him. This suppo- 
sition however being made, I feel no surprise, on 
surveying the prevailing mental condition of evan- 
gelical communities, that this man has acquired an 
accumulation of prejudices against some of the distin- 
guishing features of the gospel. Permitting himself 
to feel as if the circumstances which thus diminish or 
distort an order of christian sentiments, wore inseparable 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 211 

from it, he is inclined to regret that there should be 
any divine sanctions against his framing for himself, 
on the foundation of some selected principles in Christi- 
anity which he cannot but admire, but with a qualifying 
intermixture of foreign elements, a more liberalized 
scheme of religion. 

It was especially unfortunate if, in the advanced 
stage of this man's perhaps highly cultivated youth, 
while he was exulting in the conscious enlargement of 
intellect, and the quickening and vivid perceptiveness 
of taste, but was still to be regarded as in a degree the 
subject of education, it was his lot to have the principles 
of religion exhibited and inculcated in a repulsive 
language and cast of thought by the seniors of his 
family or acquaintance. In that case, the unavoidable 
frequency of intercourse must have rendered the coun- 
teractive operation of the unpleasing circumstances, 
associated with christian truth, almost incessant. And 
it would naturally become continually stronger. For 
each repetition of that which offended his refined mental 
habits, would incite him to value and cherish them the 
more, and to cultivate them according to a standard still 
more foreign from all congeniality with his instructors. 
These habits he began and continued to acquire from 
books of elegant sentiment or philosophical specu- 
lation, which he read in disregard of the advice, perhaps 
to occupy himself much more with works specifically 
religious. To such literary employment and amuse- 
ment he has again and again returned, with a delightful 
rebound from systematic common-places, whether de- 
livered in private or in public instruction ; and has felt 
the full contrast between the force, lustre, and mental 
richness, brightening and animating the moral specu- 
lations or poetical visions of genius, and the manner in 
which the truths of the gospel had been conveyed. He 

p2 



212 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

was not serious and honest enough to make, when in 
retirement, any deliberate trial of abstracting these 
truths from the vehicle and combination in which they 
were thus unhappily set forth, and in a measure dis- 
guised, in order to see what they would appear in a 
better form. This change of form he was competent 
to effect, or, if he was not, he had but a very small 
portion of that mental superiority, of which he was 
congratulating himself that his disgusts were an evi- 
dence. But his sense of the duty of doing this was 
perhaps less cogent, from his perceiving that the evan- 
gelical doctrines were inculcated by his relations with 
no less deficiency of the means of proving them true, 
than of rendering them interesting ; and he could easily 
discern that his instructors had received the articles of 
their faith implicitly from a class of teachers, or the 
standard creed of a religious community, without even 
perhaps a subsequent exercise of reasoning to confirm 
what they had thus adopted. They believed these 
articles through the habit of hearing them, and main- 
tained them by the habit of believing them. The recoil 
of his feelings, therefore, did not alarm his conscience 
with the apprehension that it might be absolutely the 
truth of God, that, under this uninviting form, he was 
loath to embrace. Unaided by such an impression 
already existing, and unarmed with a force of argument 
to work conviction, the seriousness, perhaps sometimes 
harsh seriousness, of his friends, reiterating the asser- 
tion of his mind being in a fatal condition, till he 
should think and feel exactly as they did, was little 
likely to conciliate his repugnance. When sometimes 
their admonitions took the mild or pathetic tone, his 
respect for their piety, and his gratitude for their 
affectionate solicitude, had perhaps a momentary effect 
to make him earnestly wish he couid renounce his 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 213 

intellectual fastidiousness, and adopt in pious simplicity 
all their feelings and ideas. But as the contracted 
views, the rude tigures, and the mixture of systematic 
and illiterate language, recurred, his mind would again 
revolt, and compel him to say, This cannot, will not, 
be my mode of religion. 

Now, one wishes there had been some enlightened 
friend to say to such a man, Why will you not under- 
stand that there is no necessity for this to be the mode 
of your religion ? By what want of acuteness do you fail 
to distinguish between the mode, (a mere extrinsic and 
accidental mode,) and the substance ? In the world 
of nature you see the same elements wrought into the 
plainest and the most beautiful, into the most diminutive 
and the most majestic forms. So the same simple 
principles of christian truth may constitute the basis 
df a very inferior, or a very noble, order of ideas. The 
principles themselves have an essential quality which is 
not convertible ; but they were not imparted to man to 
be fixed in the mind as so many bare scientific propo- 
sitions, each confined to one single mode of conception, 
without any collateral ideas, and to be always expressed 
in one unalterable form of words. They are placed 
there in order to spread out, if I might so express it, 
into a great multitude and diversity of ideas and feelings. 
These ideas and feelings, forming round the pure simple 
principles, will correspond, and will make those prin- 
ciples themselves seem to correspond, to the meaner or 
the more dignified intellectual rank of the mind. Why 
will you not perceive, that if the subject takes so 
humble a style in its less intellectual believers, it is not 
that it cannot unfold greater proportions through a 
gradation of larger and still larger faculties, and with 
facility occupy the whole capacity of the amplest, in 
the same manner as the ocean fills a gulf as easily as a 



214 ON THE AVERSJON OF MEN OF TASTE 

creek ! Through this climax it retains an identity of 
its essential principles, and appears progressively a 
nobler thing only by gaining a position for more con- 
spicuously displaying itself. Why will you not go with 
it through this gradation, till you see it presented in a 
greatness of character adequate to the utmost that you 
can, without folly, attribute to yourself of large and 
improved faculty ? Never fear lest the gospel should 
prove not sublime enough for the elevation of your 
thoughts. If you could attain an intellectual eminence 
from which you would look with pity on the rank you 
at present hold, you would still find the dignity of this 
subject on your level, and rising above it. Do you 
doubt this ? What then do you think of such spirits 
for instance, as those of Milton and Pascal ? And by 
how many degrees of the intellectual scale shall yours 
surpass them, to authorize your feeling that to be little 
which they felt to be great ? They were at times 
sensible of the magnificence of christian truth, filling, 
distending, and exceeding, their faculties, and could 
have wished for even greater powers to do it justice. 
In their loftiest contemplations, they did not feel their 
minds elevating the subject, but the subject elevating 
their minds. Now consider that their views of the 
gospel were, in essence, the same with those of its 
meanest sincere disciples ; and that therefore many 
sentiments which, by their unhappy form, have dis- 
gusted you so much, bore a faithful though humble 
analogy to the ideas of these illustrious christians. 
Why then, while hearing such sentiments, have you not 
learnt the habit of recognising this analogy, and in 
pursuance of it casting your thought upward to the 
highest style of the subject, instead of abandoning the 
subject itself in the recoil from the unfortunate mode 
of presenting it ? Have you not cause to fear that 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 215 

your dislike goes deeper than this exterior of its exhi- 
bition ? For, else, would you not anxiously seek, and 
rejoice to meet, the divine subject in that transfigu- 
ration of aspect by which its grandeur would thus be 
redeemed ? 

I would make a solemn appeal to the understanding 
and the conscience of such a man. I would say to 
him, Is it to the honour of a mind of taste, that it loses, 
when the religion of Christ is concerned, all the value 
of its discrimination ? Do you not absolutely know that 
the littleness which you see investing that religion is 
adventitious ? Are you not certain that in hearing the 
discourse of such men, if they were now to be found, as 
those I have named, the evangelical truths would appear 
to you sublime, and that they cannot be less so in fact 
than they would appear as displayed from those minds ? 
But even suppose that they also failed, and that all 
modern christians, without exception, had conspired 
to give an unattractive and unimpressive aspect to the 
subject of their profession, there is still the Christian 
Revelation — may I not presume that you sometimes 
read it? But this is to be done in that state of sus- 
ceptible seriousness, without which you will have no 
just apprehension of its character ; without which you 
are but like an ignorant clown who, happening to look 
at the heavens, perceives nothing more awful in that 
immeasurable wilderness of suns than in the row of 
lamps along the streets. If you do read that book, in 
the better state of feeling, I have no comprehension of 
the constitution of your mind, if the first perception 
would not be that of a simple venerable dignity, and 
if the second would not be that of a certain abstract 
undefinable magnificence ; a perception of something 
which, behind this simplicity, expands into a greatness 
beyond the compass of your mind ; an impression like 



216 ON" THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

that with which a thoughtful and imaginative man 
might be supposed to have looked on the countenance 
of Newton, feeling a kind of mystical absorption in the 
attempt to comprehend the magnitude of the soul 
residing within that form. When in this state of 
serious susceptibility, have you not also perceived in 
the character and the manner of the first apostles of 
this truth, while they were declaring it, an expression 
of dignity, altogether different from that of other dis- 
tinguished men. and much more elevated and un- 
earthly? If you examined the cause, you perceived 
that the dignity arose partly from their being employed 
as living oracles of this truth, and still more from their 
whole characters being pervaded by its spirit. And 
have you not been sometimes conscious, for a moment, 
that if it possessed your soul in the same manner as it 
did theirs, it would raise you to be one of the most 
excellent order of mortals ? You would then stand 
forth in a combination of sanctity, devotion, disinter- 
estedness, superiority to external things, energ}", and 
aspiring hope, in comparison of which the ambition of 
a conqueror, or the pride of a self-admiring philosopher, 
would be a very vulgar kind of dignity. You acknow- 
ledge these representations to be just ; you allow that 
the kind of sublimity which you have sometimes per- 
ceived in the New Testament, that the qualities of the 
apostolic spirit, and that the intellectual and moral great- 
ness of some modern christians, express the genuine 
character of the evangelical religion, showing that 
character to be of great lustre. But then, is it not 
most disingenuous in you to suffer the meanness which 
you know to be but associated and separable, to be ad- 
mitted by your own mind as an excuse for its alienation 
from what is acknowledged to be in itself the very 
contrary of meanness ? Ought you not to turn on 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 217 

yourself with indignation at that want of rectitude 
which resigns you to the effect of these associations, 
or with contempt of the debility which tries in vain to 
break them ? Is it for you to be offended at the mental 
weakness of christians, you, whose intellectual vigour, 
and whose sense of justice, but leave you to sink helpless 
in the fastidiousness of sickly taste, and to lament that 
so many inferior spirits have been consoled and saved 
by this divine faith as to leave on it a soil which forbids 
your embracing it, even though your own salvation 
depend? At the very same time perhaps this weakness 
takes the form of pride. Let that pride speak out ; it 
would be curious to hear it say, that your mental re- 
finement perhaps might have permitted you to take 
your ground on that eminence of the christian faith 
where Milton and Pascal stood, if so many humbler 
beings did not disgrace it, by occupying the declivity 
and the vale. 

But after all, what need of referring to illustrious 
names ? as if the claims of that which you acknowledge 
to be from heaven should be made to depend on the 
number of those who have received it gracefully ; or 
as if a rational being could calmly wait for his taste to 
be conciliated, before he would embrace a system by 
which his immortal interest is to be secured. The 
Sovereign Authority has signified what the difference 
shall be in the end, between the consequences of re- 
ceiving or not receiving the evangelic declaration. Is 
the difference so announced of such small account that 
you would not, on serious consideration, be overwhelmed 
with wonder and shame, that so minor an interference 
as that of mere taste should so long have made you 
unjust to yourself in relation to what you are in progress 
to realize ? And if, persisting to decline an exercise 
of such faithful consideration, you go on a venture to 



218 ON THE AVERSION OF xMEN OF TASTE 

meet a consequence unspeakably disastrous, will an 
unhallowed and proud refinement appear to have been 
a worthy cause for which to incur it ? You deserve to 
be disgusted with a divine communication, and to lose 
all its benefits, if you can thus let every thing have a 
greater influence on your feelings concerning it than its 
truth and importance, and if its accidental and separable 
associations with littleness, can counteract its essential 
inseparable ones with the Governor and Redeemer of 
the world, with happiness, and with eternity. With 
what compassion might you be justly regarded by an 
illiterate but zealous christian, whose interest in the 
truths of the New Testament, at once constitutes the 
best felicity here, and securely carries him toward the 
kingdom of his Father ; while you are standing aloof, 
and perhaps thinking, that if he and all such as he were 
dead, you might, after a while, acquire the spirit which 
should impel you also toward heaven. But why do 
you not feel your individual concern in this great sub- 
ject as absolutely as if all men were dead, and you 
heard alone in the earth the voice of God ; or as if you 
saw, like the solitary exile of Patmos, an awful appear- 
ance of Jesus Christ and the visions of hereafter ? What 
is it to you that many christians have given an aspect 
of littleness to the gospel, or that a few have sustained 
and exemplified its sublimity ? 



LETTER III. 

Another cause which I think has tended to render 
evangelical religion less acceptable to persons of taste, is 
the peculiarity of language adopted in the discourses 
and books of its teachers, as well as in the religious 
conversation and correspondence of the majority of its 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 219 

adherents. I do not refer to any past age, when an 
excessive quaintness deformed the composition of so 
many writers on religion and all other subjects ; my 
assertion is respecting the diction at present in use. 

The works collectively of the best writers in the 
language, of those especially who may be called the 
moderns of the language, have created and substantially 
fixed a standard of general phraseology. If any depart- 
ment is exempted from the authority of this standard, it 
is the low one of humour and buffoonery, in which the 
writer may coin and fashion phrases at his whim. But 
in the language of the higher, and of what may be called 
middle order of writing, that authority is the law. It 
does indeed allow indefinite varieties of what is called 
style, since twenty able and approved writers might be 
cited, who have each a different style ; but yet there is 
a certain general character of expression which they 
have mainly concurred to establish. This compound 
result of all their modes of writing is become sanctioned 
as the classical manner of employing the ^language, as 
the form in which it constitutes the most rectified 
general vehicle of thought. And though it is difficult 
to define this standard, yet a well-read person of taste 
feels when it is transgressed or deserted, and pronounces 
that no classical writer has employed that phrase, or 
would have combined those words in such a manner. 

The deviations from this standard must be, first, by 
mean or vulgar diction, which is below it; or secondly, 
by a barbarous diction, which is out of it, or foreign 
to it; or thirdly, by a diction which, though foreign to it, 
is yet not to be termed barbarous, because it is elevated 
entirely above the authority of the standard, by some 
transcendent force or majesty of thought, or a super- 
human communication of truth. 

I might make some charge against the language of 



220 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

divines under the first of these distinctions ; but my 
present attention is to what seems to me to come under 
the second character of difference from the standard, 
that of being barbarous. — The phrases peculiar to anv 
trade, profession, or fraternity, are barbarous, if they 
were not low; they are commonly both. The lan- 
guage of law is felt by every one to be barbarous in the 
extreme, not only by the huge lumber of its technical 
terms, but by its very structure, in the parts not con- 
sisting of technical terms. The language of science is 
barbarous, as far as it differs arbitrarily, and in more 
than the use of those terms which are indispensable to 
the science, from the pure general model. And I am 
afraid that, on the same principle, the accustomed diction 
of evangelical religion also must be pronounced bar- 
barous. For I suppose it will be instantly allowed, that 
the mode of expression of the greater number of evan- 
gelical divines,* and of those taught by them, is widely 
different from the standard of general language, not 
only by the necessary adoption of some peculiar terms, 
but by a continued and systematic cast of phraseology ; 

* When I say evangelical divines, I concur with the opinion of 
those, who deem a considerable, and, in an intellectual and literary 
view, a highly respectable class of the writers who have professedly 
taught Christianity, to be not strictly evangelical. They might rather 
be denominated moral and philosophical divines, illustrating and 
enforcing very ably the generalities of religion, and the christian 
morals, but not placing the economy of redemption exactly in that 
light in which the New Testament appears to place it. Some of 
these have avoided the kind of dialect on which I am animadverting, 
not only by means of a diction more classical and dignified in the 
general principles of its structure, but also by avoiding the ideas 
with which the phrases of this dialect are commonly associated. I 
may however here observe, that it is by no means altogether confined 
to the specifically evangelical department of writing and discourse, 
though it there prevails the most, and with the greatest number of 
phrases. It extends, in some degree, into the majority of writing 
on religion in general, and may therefore be called the theological, 
almost as properly as the evangelical, dialect. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 221 

insomuch that in reading or hearing five or six sentences 
of an evangelical discourse, you ascertain the school 
by the mere turn of expression, independently of any 
attention to the quality of the ideas. If, in order to 
try what those ideas would appear in an altered form 
of words, you attempted to reduce a paragraph to the 
language employed by intellectual men in speaking or 
writing well on general subjects, you would find it 
must be absolutely a version. You know how easily a 
vast mass of exemplification might be quoted ; and the 
specimens would give the idea of an attempt to create, 
out of the general mass of the language, a dialect which 
should be intrinsically spiritual ; and so exclusively 
appropriated to christian doctrine as to be totally unser- 
viceable for any other subject, and to become ludicrous 
when applied to it.* And this being extracted, like 
the sabbath from the common course of time, the gene- 
ral range of diction is abandoned, with all its powers, 
diversities, and elegance, to secular subjects and the use 
of the profane. It is a kind of popery of language, 
vilifying every thing not marked with the signs of the 
holy church, and forbidding any one to minister to 
religion except in consecrated speech. 

Suppose that a heathen foreigner had acquired a full 
acquaintance with our language in its most classical 
construction, yet without learning any thing about the 
gospel, (which it is true enough he might do,) and 
that he then happened to read or hear an evangelical 
discourse — he would be exceedingly surprised at the 

* This is so true, that it is no uncommon expedient with the 
would-be wits, to introduce some of the spiritual phrases, in speaking 
of any thing which they wish to render ludicrous ; and they are 
generally so far successful as to be rewarded by the laugh or the 
smile of the circle, who probably may never have had the good 
fortune of hearing wit, and have not the sense or conscience to care 
about religion. 



222 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

cast of phraseology. He would probably be arrested 
and perplexed in such a manner as hardly to know 
whether he was trying his faculties on the new doctrine, 
or on the singularity of the diction ; whereas the general 
course of the diction should appear but the same as 
that to which he had been accustomed. It should be 
such that he would not even think of if, but only of 
the new subject and peculiar ideas which were coming 
through it to his apprehension ; unless there could be 
some advantage in the necessity of looking at these 
ideas through the mist and confusion of the double 
medium, created by the super-induction of an uncouth 
special dialect on the general language. — Or if he were 
not a stranger to the subject, but had acquired its 
leading principles from some author or speaker who 
employed (with the addition of a very small number 
of peculiar terms) the same kind of language in which 
any other serious subject would have been discoursed 
on, he would still be not less surprised. " Is it possible," 
he would say, as soon as he could apprehend what he 
was attending to, " that these are the very same views 
which lately presented themselves with such lucid sim- 
plicity to my understanding ? Or is there something 
more, of which 1 am not aware, conveyed and concealed 
under these strange shapings of phrase ? Is this another 
stage of the religion, the school of the adepts, in which 
I am not yet initiated ? And does religion then every 
where, as well as in my country, affect to show and 
guard its importance by relinquishing the simple lan- 
guage of intelligence, and assuming a sinister dialect 
of its own ? Or is this the diction of an individual 
only, and of one who really intends but to convey the 
same ideas that I have elsewhere received in so much 
more clear and direct a vehicle of words ? But then, 
in what remote corner, placed beyond the authority of 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 223 

criticism and the circulation of literature, where a noble 
language stagnates into barbarism, did this man study 
his religion and acquire his phrases ? Or by what 
inconceivable perversion of taste and of labour has he 
framed, for the sentiments of his religion, a mode of 
expression so uncongenial with the eloquence of his 
country, and so calculated to exclude it from all benefit 
of that eloquence ?" 

My dear friend, if I were not conscious of a most 
sincere veneration for evangelical religion itself, I should 
be more afraid to trust myself in making these obser- 
vations on the usual manner of expressing its ideas. If 
my description be exaggerated, I am willing to be 
corrected. But that there is a great and systematical 
alienation from the true classical diction, is most pal- 
pably obvious: and I cannot help regarding it as an 
unfortunate circumstance. It gives the gospel too much 
the air of a professional thing, which must have its 
peculiar cast of phrases, for the mutual recognition of 
its proficients, in the same manner as other professions, 
arts, crafts, and mysteries, have theirs. This is offi- 
ciously placing the singularity of littleness to draw 
attention to the singularity of greatness, which in the 
very act it misrepresents and obscures. It is giving an 
uncouthness of mien to a beauty which should attract 
all hearts. It is teaching a provincial dialect to the 
rising instructor of a world. It is imposing the guise 
of a cramped formal ecclesiastic on what is destined for 
an universal monarch. 

Would it not be an improvement in the administration 
of religion, by discourse and writing, if christian truth 
were conveyed in that neutral vehicle of expression 
which is adapted indifferently to common serious sub- 
jects ? But it may be made a question whether it can 
be perfectly conveyed in such language. This point 



224? OX THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

therefore requires a little consideration. — The diction 
on which I have animadverted, may be described under 
three distinctions. 

The first is a peculiar way of using various common 
words. And this peculiarity consists partly in ex- 
pressing ideas by such single words as do not simply 
and directly belong to them, instead of other single 
words which do simply and directly belong to them, and 
in general language are used to express them ;* and 
partly in using such combinations of words as make 
uncouth phrases. Now what necessity ? The answer 
is immediately obvious as to the former part of the 
description ; there can be no need to use one common 
word in an affected and forced manner to convey an 
idea, which there is another common word at hand to 
express in the simplest and most usual manner. And 
then as to phrases, consisting of an uncouth combination 
of words which are common, and have no degree of tech- 
nicality, — are they necessary ? They are not absolutely 
necessary, unless each of these combinations conveys a 
thought of so exquisitely singular a turn, that no other 
conjunction of terms could have expressed it ; which was 
never suggested by one mind to another till these three 
or four words, falling out of the general order of the 
language, gathered into a peculiar phrase; which cannot 
be expressed in the language of another country that 
has not a correspondent idiom ; and which will vanish 
from the world if ever this phrase shall be forgotten. 
But these combinations of words have no such pre- 
tensions. When you obtain their meaning, you may 
well wonder why a peculiar apparatus of phrase should 
have been constructed, to bring and retain such an 

* As for instance, walk, and conversation, instead of conduct, 
actions, or deportment : flesh, instead of, sometimes, body, sometimes 
natural inclination. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 225 

element of thought within the sphere of your under- 
standing. But indeed the very circumstance of there 
being nothing extraordinary in the sense, may have 
been one inducement to the contrivance. There may 
have been a certain discontent that the import should 
not appear more significant, more weighty, more sacred, 
more authoritative, than it could be made to appear as 
conveyed in common secular language. It could not 
be trusted to have its proper effect, without some special 
token borne on its exterior to warn us to pay it reve- 
rence. In whatever manner, however, the language 
came to be perverted into these artificial modes, it 
would be easy to try whether the ideas, of which they 
are the vehicles, are such as they exclusively are com- 
petent and privileged to convey, insomuch that their 
rejection would be the forfeiture of a certain portion 
of religious truth and sentiment, which would there 
upon retire beyond the confines of our intelligence, 
disdaining to stay and make an abode in common forms 
of language. And it would be found that these phrases, 
as it is within our familiar experience that all phrases 
consisting of only common words, and having no 
relation to art or science, can be exchanged for several 
different combinations of words, without materially 
altering the thought or lengthening the expression. 
Make the experiment on any paragraph written in the 
manner in question, on any religious topic whatever, 
and see whether you cannot melt all the uncouth con- 
structions of diction, to be cast in a new and un- 
canonical shape, without letting any sense there was 
in them evaporate. I conclude then, that what I have 
described as the first part of the theological dialect, the 
peculiar mode of using common words, is not absolutely 
necessary as a vehicle of christian truths. 

The second part of the dialect consists, not in a 

Q 



226 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

peculiar mode of using common words, but in a class 
of words peculiar in themselves, as being seldom used 
except by divines, but of which the meaning can be 
expressed, without definition or circumlocution, by- 
other single terms which are in general use. For 
example, edification, tribulation, blessedness, godliness, 
righteousness, carnality, lusts, (a term peculiar and 
theological only in the plural,) could be exchanged for 
parallel terms too obvious to need mentioning. It is 
true indeed that there are very few terms, if any, 
perfectly synonymous. But when there are several 
words of very similar though not exactly the same 
signification, and none of them belong to an art or 
science, the one which is selected is far more frequently 
used in that general meaning by which it is merely 
equivalent to the others, than in that precise shade of 
meaning by which it is distinguished from them. The 
words instruction, improvement, for instance, may not 
express exactly the sense of edification ; but the word 
edification is probably not often used by a writer or 
speaker with any recollection of that peculiarity of its 
meaning by which it differs from improvement or in- 
struction. This is still more true of some other words, 
as, for example, tribulation and affliction. Whatever 
small difference of import these words may have in 
virtue of derivation, it is probable that no man ever 
wrote tribulation rather than affliction on account of 
such difference. If, in addition to these two, the word 
distress has offered itself, the selection of any one from 
the three has perhaps always been determined by habit, 
or accident, rather than by any perception of a distinct 
signification. The same remark is applicable to the 
words blessed, happy, righteous, virtuous, carnal, sensual, 
and a multitude of others. So that though there are 
few words strictly synonymous, yet there are very many 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 2^7 

which are so in effect, even by the allowance and sanction 
of the most rigid laws to which any of the best writers 
have conformed their composition. Perhaps this is a 
defect in human thinking; of which the ideal perfection 
may be, that every conception should be so discrimi- 
native and precise, that no two words, which have a 
definable shade of difference in their meaning, should 
be equally and indifferently eligible to express that 
conception. But what writer or speaker will ever even 
aspire to such perfection of thinking ? — not to say that 
if he did, he would soon find the vocabulary of the 
most copious language deficient of single direct terms, 
and indeed of possible combinations of terms, to mark 
all the sensible modifications of his ideas. If a divine 
felt that he had such extreme discrimination of thought, 
that he meant something clearly different by the words 
carnal, godly, edifying, and so of many others, from 
what he could express by the words, sensual, pious, 
religious, instructive, he would certainly do right to 
adhere to the more peculiar words ; but if he does not, 
he may perhaps improve the vehicle, without hurting the 
material, of his religious communications, by adopting 
the general and what may be called classical mode of 
expression. 

The third distinction of the theological dialect 
consists in words almost peculiar to the language of 
divines, and for which equivalent terms cannot be 
found, except in the form of definition or circumlo- 
cution. Sanctification, regeneration, grace, covenant, 
salvation, and a few more, may be assigned to this 
class. These may be called, in a qualified sense, the 
technical terms of evangelical religion. Now, separately 
from any religious considerations, it is plainly necessary, 
in a literary view, that all those terms that express a 
modification of thought which there are no other words 

Q2 



<2 C 28 ON THE AVERSION OE MEN OF TASTE 

competent to express, without great circumlocution, 
should be retained. They are requisite to the sufficiency 
of the language. And then, in considering those terms 
as connected with the christian truth, I am ready to 
admit, that it will be of advantage to that truth, for 
some of those peculiar doctrines, of which it partly 
consists, to be permanently denominated by certain 
peculiar words, which shall stand as its technical terms. 
But here several thoughts suggest themselves. 

First, the definitions of some of these christian terms 
are not absolutely unquestionable. The words have as- 
sumed the specific formality of technical terms, without 
having completely the quality and value of such terms. 
A certain laxity in their sense renders them of far less 
use in their department, than the terms of science, 
especially of mathematical science, are in theirs. Tech- 
nical terms have been the lights of science, but, in 
many instances, the shades of religion. It is most un- 
fortunate, when, in disquisitions or instructions, the 
grand leading words, on which the force of all the 
rest depends, have not a precise and indisputable sig- 
nification. The effect is similar to that which takes 
place in the ranks of an army, when an officer has a 
doubtful opinion, or gives indistinct orders. What J 
would infer from these observations is, that a christian 
writer or speaker will occasionally do well, instead of 
using the peculiar term, to express at length in other 
words, at the expense of much circumlocution, that 
idea which he would have wished to convey if he had 
used that peculiar term. I do not mean that he should 
do this so often as to render the term obsolete. It 
might be useful sometimes, especially in verbal in- 
struction, both to introduce the term, and to give such 
a sentence as I have described. Such an expletive 
repetition of the idea will more than co pensate for 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 229 

the tediousness, by the distinctness and fulness of 
enunciation.* 

Secondly, if the definitions of the christian peculiar 
terms were even as precise and fixed as those of scientific 
denominations, yet the nature of the subject is such as 
to permit an indolent mind to pronounce or to hear 
these terms without recollecting those definitions. In 
delivering or writing, and in hearing or reading, a 
mathematical lecture, both the teacher and the pupil 
are compelled to form in their minds the exact idea 
which each technical term has been defined to signify; 
else the whole train of words is mere sound and inanity. 
But in religion, a man has a feeling of having some 
general ideas connected with all the words as he hears 
them, though he perhaps never studied, or does not 
retain, the definition of one. I shall have occasion to 
repeat this remark, and therefore do not enlarge here. 
The inference is the same as under the former obser- 
vation ; it is, that the technical terms of Christianity 
will contribute little to precision of thought, unless the 
ideas which they signify be often expressed at length 
in other words, either in explanation of those terms 
when introduced, or in substitution for them when 
omitted. 

Thirdly, it is not in the power of single theological 
terms, however precise their definitions may at any 
time have been, to secure to their respective ideas an 
unalterable stability. Unless the ideas themselves, by 
being often expressed in common words, preserve the 
signification of the terms, the terms will not preserve 
the accuracy of the ideas. This is true no doubt of 
the technical terms of science ; but it is true in a much 

* It is needless to observe that this would be a superfluous labour 
with respect to the most simple of the peculiar words, such for 
instance as salvation. 



230 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

more striking manner of the peculiar words in theo- 
logy. If the technical terms of science, at least of the 
strictest kind of science, were to cease to mean what 
they had been defined to mean, they would cease to 
mean any thing, and the change would be only from 
knowledge to blank ignorance. But in the christian 
theology, the change might be from truth to error ; 
since the peculiar words might cease to mean what 
they were once defined to mean, by being employed 
in a different sense. It may not be difficult to con- 
jecture in what sense the terms conversion and rege- 
neration, for example, were used by the reformers, and 
the men who may be called the fathers of the established 
church of this country ; but what sense have they sub- 
sequently borne in the writings of many of its divines? 
The peculiar words may remain, when the ideas which 
they were intended to perpetuate are gone. Thus 
instead of being the signs of those ideas, they become 
their monuments ; and monuments profaned into abodes 
for the living enemies of the departed. It must indeed 
be acknowledged, that in some instances innovations 
of doctrine have been introduced partly by declining 
the use of the words that designated the doctrines which 
it was wished to render obsolete ; but they have been 
still more frequently and successfully introduced, under 
the advantage of retaining the terms while the prin- 
ciples were gradually subverted. And therefore I shall 
be pardoned for repeating this once more, that since 
the peculiar words can be kept in one invariable sig- 
nification only by keeping that signification clearly in 
sight in another way than the bare use of these words 
themselves, it would be wise in christian authors and 
speakers sometimes to express the ideas in common 
words, either in expletive and explanatory connexion 
with the peculiar terms, or, occasionally, instead of 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 231 

them. I would still be understood to approve entirely 
of the use of a few of this class of terms ; while the 
above observations may deduct very much from the 
usual estimate of their value and importance. 

These pages have attempted to show, in what parti- 
culars the language adopted by a great proportion of 
christian divines might be modified, and yet remain 
faithful to the principles of christian doctrine. Such 
common words as have acquired an affected cast in 
theological use, might give place to the other common 
words which express the ideas in a plain and unaffected 
manner, and the phrases formed of common words un- 
couthly combined, may be swept away. — Many peculiar 
and antique words might be exchanged for other single 
words, of equivalent signification, and in general use. 
— And the small number of peculiar terms acknow- 
ledged and established as of permanent use and ne- 
cessity, might, even separately from the consideration 
of modifying the diction, be often, with advantage 
to the explicit declaration and clear comprehension 
of christian truth, made to give place to a fuller ex- 
pression, in a number of common words, of those ideas 
of which these peculiar terms are the single signs. 

Now such an alteration would bring the language of 
divines nearly to the classical standard. If evangelical 
sentiments could be faithfully presented, in an order of 
words of which so small a part should be of specific 
cast, they could be presented in what should be sub- 
stantially the diction of Addison or Pope. And if 
even Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, and Hume, could have 
become christians by some mighty and sudden efficacy 
of conviction, and had determined to write thenceforth 
in the spirit of the Apostles, they would have found, 
if these observations be correct, no radical change 



232 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

necessary in the consistence of their language. An 
enlightened believer in Christianity might have been 
sorry, if, in such a case, he had seen any of them su- 
perstitiously labouring to acquire all the phrases of a 
school, instead of applying at once to its new vocation 
a diction fitted for the vehicle of universal thought. 
Are not they yet sufficient masters of language, it might 
have been asked with surprise, to express all their 
thoughts with the utmost precision ? As their language 
had been found sufficiently specific to injure the gospel, 
it would have been strange if it had been too general 
to serve it. The required alteration would probably 
have been little more than to introduce familiarly the 
obvious denominations of the christian topics and 
objects, such as, redemption, heaven, mediator, Christ, 
Redeemer, with the others of a similar kind, and a 
very few of those almost technical words which I have 
admitted to be indispensable. The habitual use of 
such denominations would have left the general order 
of their composition the same. And it would have 
been striking to observe by how comparatively small a 
difference of terms a diction which had appeared most 
perfectly pagan, could be christianized, when the writer 
had turned to christian subjects, and felt the christian 
spirit. — On the whole then, I conclude that, with the 
exception which I have distinctly made, the evangelical 
principles may be clearly exhibited in what may be 
called a neutral diction. And if they may, I can imagine 
some reasons to justify the wish that it were generally 
employed. 

As one of these reasons, I may revert to the con- 
sideration of the impression made by the dialect which 
I have described, on those persons of cultivated taste 
whom this essay has chiefly in view. I am aware that 
*hey are greatly inclined to make an idol of their taste ; 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 233 

and I am aware also that no species of irreligion can 
be much worse than to sacrifice to this idol any thing 
which essentially belongs to Christianity. If any part 
of evangelical religion, all injurious associations being 
detached, were still of a nature to displease a refined 
taste, the duty would evidently be to repress its claims 
and murmurs. We should dread the presumption which 
would require of the Deity that his spiritual economy 
should be, both in reality and evidently to our view, 
correspondent in all parts to the type of order, grandeur, 
or beauty presented to us in the constitution of the 
material world, or to those notions of them which 
have become conventionally established among culti- 
vated minds. But, at the same time, it is a most 
unwise policy for religion, that the sacrifice of taste 
which ought, if required, to be submissively made to 
any part of either its essence or its form as really dis- 
played from heaven, should be exacted to any thing un- 
necessarily and ungracefully superinduced by man. 

As another reason, I would observe, that the dis- 
ciples of the religion of Christ would wish it to mingle 
more extensively and familiarly with social converse, 
and all the serious subjects of human attention. But 
then it should have every facility, that would not com- 
promise its genuine character, for doing so. And a 
peculiar phraseology is the direct contrary of such 
facility, as it gives to what is already by its own 
nature eminently distinguished from common subjects, 
an artificial strangeness, which makes it difficult for 
discourse to slide into it, and revert to it and from it, 
without a formal and uncouth transition. The subject 
is placed in a condition like that of an entire foreigner 
in company, who is debarred from taking any share in 
the conversation, till some one interrupts it by turning 
directly to him, and beginning to talk with him in the 



234- ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

foreign language. You have sometimes observed, when 
a person has introduced religious topics, in the course 
of perhaps a tolerably rational conversation on other 
interesting subjects, that, owing to the cast of ex- 
pression, fully as much as to the difference of the 
subject, it was done by an entire change of the whole 
tenour and bearing of the discourse, and with as 
formal an announcement as the bell ringing to church. 
Had his religious diction been more of a piece with 
the common cast of language of intelligent discourse, 
he might probably have introduced the subject sooner, 
and certainly with a much better effect. 

A third consideration, is, that evangelical sentiments 
would be less subject to the imputation of fanaticism, 
if their language were less contrasted with that of other 
classes of sentiments. Here it is unnecessary to say, 
that, no pusillanimity were more contemptible than 
that which, to escape this imputation, would surrender 
the smallest vital particle of the religion of Christ. 
We are to keep in solemn recollection his declaration, 
" Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, 
of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed.'' Any 
model of terms, which could not be superseded without 
precluding some idea peculiar to the gospel from the 
possibility of being faithfully expressed, it would be 
for his disciples to retain in spite of all the ridicule of 
the most antichristian age. But I am, at every step, 
assuming that every part of the evangelical system can 
be most perfectly exhibited in a diction but little pecu- 
liar ; and, that being admitted, would it not be better 
to avert the imputation, as far as this difference of 
language could avert it ? Better, I do not mean, in 
the way of protective convenience to any cowardly 
feeling, of the man who is liable to be called a fanatic 
for maintaining the evangelical principles ; he ought, 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 235 

on the ground both of christian fidelity and of manly 
independence, to be superior to caring about the charge ; 
but better, as to the light in which these principles 
might appear to the persons who meet them with this 
prejudice. You may have observed that in attributing 
fanaticism, they often fix on the phrases, at least as 
much as on the absolute substance, of evangelical 
doctrines. Now would it not be better to show them 
what these doctrines are, as divested of these phrases, 
and exhibited clearly in that vehicle in which other 
important truths are presented ; and thus, at least, to 
defeat their propensity to seize on a mode of exhibition 
so convertible to the ludicrous, in defence against any 
claim made on them for seriousness respecting the sub- 
stantial matter ? If sometimes their grave attention, 
their corrected apprehension, their partial approbation, 
might be gained, it were a still more desirable effect. 
And we can recollect instances in which a certain 
degree of this good effect has resulted. Persons who 
had received unfavourable impressions of some of the 
peculiar ideas of the gospel, from having heard them 
advanced almost exclusively in the modes of phrase on 
which I have remarked, have acknowledged their pre- 
judices to be somewhat diminished, after these ideas 
had been presented in the simple general language of 
intellect. We cannot indeed so far forget the lessons 
of experience, and the inspired declarations concerning 
the dispositions of the human mind, as to expect that it 
would be more than very partially conciliated by any 
possible improvement in the mode of exhibiting chris- 
tian truth. But it were to be wished that every thing 
should be done to bring reluctant minds into doubt, at 
least, whether, if they cannot be evangelical, it be 
because they are of an order too rectified and refined. 
As a further consideration in favour of adopting a 



236 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

more general language, it may be observed, that hypo- 
crisy would then find a much greater difficulty, as far 
as speech is concerned, in supporting its imposture. 
The usual language of hypocrisy, at least of vulgar hy- 
pocrisy, is cant ; and religious cant is often an affected 
use of the phrases which have been heard employed as 
appropriate to evangelical truth ; with which phrases 
the hypocrite has connected no distinct ideas, so that 
he would be confounded if an intelligent examiner 
were to require an accurate explanation of them ; while 
yet nothing is more easy to be sung or said. Now 
were this diction, for the greater part, to vanish from 
christian society, leaving the truth in its mere essence 
behind, and were, consequently, the pretender reduced 
to assume the guise of religion on the more laborious 
condition of acquiring an understanding of its leading 
principles, so as to be able to give them forth dis- 
criminatively in language of his own, the part of a 
hypocrite would be much less easily acted, and less 
frequently attempted. Religion would therefore be sel- 
domer dishonoured by the mockery of a false semblance. 
Again, if this alteration of language were introduced, 
some of the sincere disciples of evangelical religion 
would much more distinctly feel the necessity of a 
positive intellectual hold on the principles of their pro- 
fession. A systematic recurring formality of words 
tends to prevent a perfect understanding of the subject, 
by furnishing for complex ideas a set of ready-framed 
signs, (like stereotype in printing,) which a man learns 
to employ without really having the ideas of which the 
combination should consist. Some of the simple ideas 
which belong to the combination may be totally absent 
from his mind, the others may be most faintly appre- 
hended ; there is no precise construction therefore of 
the thought ; and thus the sign which he uses, stands 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 237 

in fact for nothing. If, on hearing one of these phrases, 
you were to tarn to the speaker, and say, Now what is 
that idea ? What do you plainly mean by that ex- 
pression ? — you would often lind with how indistinct a 
conception, with how little attention to the very idea 
itself, the mind had been contented. And this con- 
tentment you would often observe to be, not a humble 
acquiescence in a consciously defective apprehension of 
some principle, of which a man feels and confesses the 
difficulty of attaining more than a partial conception, 
but the satisfied assurance that he fully understands 
what he is expressing. On another subject, where 
there were no settled forms of words to beguile him 
into the feeling as if he thought and understood, when 
in fact he did not, and where words must have been 
selected to define his own formation of the thought, his 
embarrassment how to express himself would have 
made him aware that his notion had no shape, and have 
compelled an intellectual effort to give it one. But it 
is against all reason that christian truth should be 
believed and professed with a less concern for precision, 
and at the expense of less mental exercise, than any 
other subject would require. And of how little con- 
sequence it would seem to be, in this mode of believing, 
whether a man entertains one system of principles or 
the opposite. 

But if such arguments could not be alleged, it would 
still seem far from desirable, without evident necessity, 
to clothe evangelical sentiment in a diction varying in 
more than a few indispensable terms from the general 
standard, for the simple reason, that it must be bar- 
barous ; unless, as I have observed, it be raised quite 
above the authority of this standard, and of the criticism 
and the taste which appeal to it, by the venerable 



C 2S8 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

dignity of inspiration, which we have no more to ex- 
pect, or by the intellectual power of a genius almost 
surpassing human nature. I do not know whether it 
be absolutely impossible that there should arise a man 
whose manner of thinking shall be so transcendent 
in originality and demonstrative vigour, as to authorize 
him to throw the language into a new order, all his 
own : but it is questionable whether there ever ap- 
peared such a writer, in any language which had been 
cultivated to its maturity. Even Milton, w T ho might, 
if ever mortal might, be warranted to sport with all 
established authority and usage, and to run the language 
into whatever unsanctioned forms would enlarge his 
freedom in grand mental enterprise, has been, for pre- 
suming in a certain degree to create for himself a pe- 
culiar diction, charged by Johnson with writing in a 
" Babylonish dialect." And Johnson's own mighty 
force of mind has not defended his Roman dialect from 
being condemned by all men of taste. The magic of 
Burke's eloquence is not enough to beguile the per- 
ception, that it is of less dignified and commanding 
tone, has less of the claim to be " for all time," than if 
the same marvellous affluence of thought and fancy 
had been conveyed in a language of less arbitrary, 
capricious, and mannerish character. To revert to the 
theological peculiarity of dialect ; we may look in vain 
for any theologian of genius so supereminently powerful 
as might impress on it either a dignity to overawe, or 
a grace to conciliate, literary taste. But indeed if we 
had such a one he would not attempt it. If he dis- 
regarded the classical standard, and chose to speak in 
an alien dialect, it would be a dialect of his own, 
formed in s.till more complete independence and dis- 
regard of the model which so many theological teachers 
have concurred to establish for the language of religion. 



TO EVANGELICAL xlELIGION. 239 

It may be said, perhaps, that any such splendid in- 
tervention, in authorization of that model, can be 
spared ; for that the class contains so many of great 
ability, and so many more of great piety and usefulness, 
that the peculiar diction will maintain its ground. 
Probably it will do so, in a considerable degree, for a 
long time. But no numbers, ability, or piety, will ever 
redeem it from the character of barbarism. 



LETTER IV. 

In defence of the diction which I have been describ- 
ing, it will be said, that it has grown out of the language 
of the Bible. To a great extent, this is evidently true. 
Many phrases indeed which casually occurred in the 
writings of divines, and many which were laboriously 
invented by those who wished to give to divinity a 
complete systematic arrangement, and therefore wanted 
denominations or titles for the multitude of articles in 
the artificial distribution, have been incorporated in 
the theological dialect. But a large proportion of its 
phrases consists partly in such combinations of words 
as were taken originally from the Bible, and still more 
in such as have, from familiarity with that book, partly 
grown in insensible assimilation, and partly been formed 
intentionally, but rudely, in resemblance, to its charac- 
teristic language. 

Before proceeding further, I do not know whether it 
may be necessary, in order to prevent misapprehension, 
to advert to the high advantage and propriety of often 
introducing sentences from the Bible, not only in theo- 
logical, but in any grave moral composition. Passages 
of the inspired writings must necessarily be cited, in 
some instances, in proof of the truth of opinions, and 



24*0 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

may be most happily cited, in many others, to give a 
venerable and impressive air to serious sentiments 
which would be admitted as just though unsupported 
by such a reference to the authority. Both complete 
sentences, and striking short expressions, consisting 
perhaps sometimes of only two or three words, may be 
thus introduced with an effect at once useful and orna- 
mental, while they appear pure and unmodified amidst 
the composition, as simple particles of scripture, quite 
distinct from the diction in which they are inserted. 
When thus appearing in their own genuine quality, as 
lines or parts of lines taken from a venerable book 
which is written in a manner very different from our 
common mode of language, they are read as expressions 
foreign to the surrounding composition, and, without 
an effort, referred to the work from which they are 
brought and of which they retain the unaltered consis- 
tence ; in the same manner as passages, or striking 
short expressions, adopted from some respected and 
well-known classic in our language. Whatever dignity 
therefore characterizes the great work itself, is possessed 
also by these detached pieces in the various places 
where they are inserted, but not, if I may so express 
it, infused. And if they be judiciously inserted, they 
impart their dignity to the sentiments which they are 
employed to enforce. This employment of the sacred 
expressions maybe very frequent, as the Bible contains 
such an immense variety of ideas, applicable to all 
manner of interesting subjects. And from its being 
so familiarly known, its sentences or shorter expressions 
may be introduced without the formality of noticing, 
either in terms or by any other mark, from what 
volume they are drawn. — These observations are more 
than enough, to obviate any imputation of wanting 
a due sense of the dignity and force which may be 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 24«1 

imparted by a judicious introduction of the language 
of the Bible. 

It is a different mode of using biblical language, 
that constitutes so considerable a part of the dialect 
which I have ventured to disapprove. When insertions 
are made from the Bible in the manner here described 
as effective and ornamental, the composition exhibits 
two kinds of diction, each bearing its own separate 
character ; the one being the diction which belongs to 
the author, the other that of the sacred book whence 
the citations are drawn. We pass along the course of 
his language with the ordinary feeling of being ad- 
dressed in a common general phraseology ; and when 
the pure scripture expressions occur, they are recog- 
nised in their own peculiar character, and with the 
sense that we are reading, in small detached portions, 
just so much of the Bible itself. This distinct recog- 
nition of the two separate characters of language 
prevents any impression of an uncouth heterogeneous 
consistence, But in the theological dialect, that part 
of the phraseology which has a biblical cast, is neither 
the one of these two kinds of language nor the other, 
but an inseparable though crude amalgam of both. 
For the expressions resembling those of scripture are 
blended and moulded into the substance of the diction, 
I say resembling ; for though some of them are pre- 
cisely phrases from the Bible, yet most of them are 
phrases a little modified from the form in which they 
occur in the sacred book, by changing or adding words, 
by compounding two phrases into one, and by fitting 
the rest of the language to the biblical phrases by an 
imitative antique construction. In this manner the 
scriptural expressions, instead of appearing as distin- 
guished points on a common ground, as gems advan- 
tageously set in an inferior substance, are reduced to 

R 



24-2 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN Otf TASTE 

become an ordinary and desecrated ingredient in an 
uncouth phraseology. They are no longer brought 
directly from the scriptures, by an act of thought and 
choice in the person who uses them, and with a recol- 
lection of their sacred origin ; but merely recur to him 
in the common usage of the diction, into which they 
have degenerated in the school of divines. They there- 
fore are now in no degree of the nature of quotations, 
introduced for their special appositeness in the par- 
ticular instance, as the expressions of an admired and 
revered human author would be repeated. 

This is the kind of biblical phraseology which I 
could wish to see less employed, — unless it be either 
more venerable or more lucid than that which I have 
recommended. We may be allowed to doubt how 
far such language can be venerable, after considering, 
that it gives not the smallest assurance of striking or 
elevated thought, since in fact a vast quantity of most 
inferior writing has appeared in this kind of diction ; 
that it is not now actually drawn from the sacred 
fountains ; that the incessant repetition of its phrases 
in every kind of religious exercise and performance has 
worn out any solemnity it might ever have had ; and 
that it is the very usual concomitant and sign of a 
servilely systematic and cramped manner of thinking. 
It may be considered also, that, from whatever high 
origin any modes and figures of speech may be drawn, 
they are reduced, 'n point of dignity, to the quality of 
the material with which they become interfused ; so 
that if the whole character of the dialect of divines is 
not adapted to excite veneration, the proportion of it 
which gives a colour of scripture-phraseology, not 
standing out distinct from the composition, will have 
lost the virtue to excite it. And again, let it be con- 
sidered, that in almost all cases, an attempt to imitate 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 243 

the peculiarity of form in which a venerable object is 
presented, not only fails to excite veneration, but pro- 
vokes the contrary sentiment ; especially when all 
things in the form of the venerable model are homo- 
geneous, while the imitation exhibits some features of 
resemblance incongruously combined with what is 
mainly and unavoidably of a different cast. A grand 
ancient edifice, of whatever order, or if it were of a 
construction peculiar to itself, would be an impressive 
object ; but a modern little one raised in its neighbour- 
hood, of a conformation for the greatest part glaringly 
vulgar, but with a number of antique windows and 
angles in imitation of the grand structure, would be a 
grotesque and ridiculous one. 

Scriptural phrases then can no longer make a solemn 
impression, when modified and vulgarized into the tex- 
ture of a language which, taken altogether, is the re- 
verse of every thing that can either attract or command. 
Such idioms may indeed remind one of prophets and 
apostles, but it is a recollection which prompts to say, 
Who are these men that, instead of respectfully intro- 
ducing at intervals the direct words of those revered 
dictators of truth, seem to be mocking the sacred lan- 
guage by a barbarous imitative diction of their own ? 
They may affect the forms of a divine solemnity, but 
there is no fire from heaven. They may show something 
like a burning bush, but it is without an angel. 

As to perspicuity, there will not be a question whether 
that be one of the recommendations of this corrupt 
modification of the biblical phraseology. Without our 
leave, the mode of expression habitually associated with 
the general exercise of our intelligence, conveys ideas 
to us the most easily and the most clearly. And not 
unfrequently even in citing the pure expressions of 
scripture, especially in doctrinal subjects, a religious 

r 2 



244- ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

instructor will find it indispensable to add a sentence 
in order to expose the sense in a plainer manner ; and 
that not as comment, but as explanation. He has many 
occasions for seeing that unless he do this, there will 
not be, in the minds of the persons to be instructed, 
exactly and definitively the idea which he understands 
to be expressed in the cited passage. Even to possess 
himself of a clear apprehension, there is, he might 
perceive in his mind, a kind of translating operation, 
embodying the idea in more common language, equi- 
valent to the biblical. 

But would not the disuse of a language which seems 
to bear a constant reference to the Bible, by this in- 
timate blending of its phraseology, tend to put the 
Bible out of remembrance ? It may be answered, that 
the Bible, as a book which will be read beyond all 
comparison more than any other, will keep itself in 
remembrance, among the serious part of mankind. 
Besides, it may be presumed that religious teachers 
and writers, however secularized the language they 
may adopt, will too often bring the sacred book in 
view by direct reference and citation, to admit any 
danger, from them, of its being forgotten. And though 
its distinct unmodified expressions should be introduced 
much seldomer in the course of their sentences, than 
the half-scriptural phrases are recurring in the diction 
under consideration, they would remind us of the Bible 
in a more advantageous manner, than a dialect which 
has lost the dignity of a sacred language without 
acquiring the grace of a classical one. I am sensible 
in how many points the illustration would be defective, 
but it would partly answer my purpose to observe, that 
if it were wished to promote the study of some vene- 
rated human author of a former age, suppose Hooker, 
the way would not be to attempt incorporating a great 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 24-5 

number of his turns of expression into the essential 
structure of our own diction, which would generally 
have a most uncouth effect, but to make respectful 
references, and often to insert in our composition sen- 
tences, and parts of sentences, distinctly as his, while 
our own cast of diction was conformed to the general 
modern standard. 

Let the oracles of inspiration be cited continually, 
both as authority and illustration, in a manner that 
shall make the mind instantly refer each expression 
that is introduced to the venerable book whence it is 
taken ; but let our part of religious language be simply 
ours, and let those oracles retain their characteristic 
form of expression unimitated, unparodied, to the end 
of time.* 

An advocate for the theological diction, who should 
hesitate to maintain its necessity or utility on the ground 

* In the above remarks, I have not made any distinction between 
the sacred books in their own language, and as translated. It might 
not however be improper to notice, that though there is a great pe- 
culiarity of language in the original, yet a certain proportion of the 
phraseology, as it stands in the translated scriptures, does not properly 
belong to the structure of the original composition, but is to be 
ascribed to the complexion of the language at the time when the 
translation was made. A translation, therefore, made now, and con- 
formed to the present state of the language, in the same degree in 
which the earlier translation was conformed to the state of the lan- 
guage at that time, would make an alteration in some parts of that 
phraseology which the theological dialect has attempted to incor- 
porate and imitate. If therefore it were the duty of divines to take 
the biblical mode of expression for their model, it would still be 
quite a work of supererogation to take this model in a wider degree 
of difference from the ordinary language suited to serious thoughts 
than as it would appear in such a later version. This would be a 
homage, not to the real diction of the sacred scriptures, but to the 
earlier cast of our own language. At the same time it must be 
admitted, both that the change of expression which a later version 
might, on merely philological principles, be justified by the progress 
and present standard of our language for making, would not be 
great : and that every sentiment of prudence and devotional taste 



24-6 OX THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

that a considerable proportion of it has grown out of 
the language of scripture, may yet think it has become 
necessary in consequence of so many people having 
been so long accustomed to it. I cannot but be aware, 
that many respectable teachers of Christianity would 
find a very great difficulty to depart from their inveterate 
usage. Nor could they acquire, if the change were 
attempted, a happy command of a more general lan- 
guage, without being considerably conversant with 
good writers on general subjects, and sedulously exer- 
cising themselves to throw their thoughts into a some- 
what similar current of language. Unless, therefore, 
this study has been cultivated, or is intended to be 
cultivated, it will perhaps be better for them, especially 
if far advanced in life, to retain the accustomed mode 
of expression with all disadvantages. Younger theo- 
logical students, however, are supposed to become 



forbids to make quite so much alteration as those principles might 
warrant. , All who have long venerated the scriptures in their some- 
what antique version, would protest against their being laboriously 
modernized into every nice conformity with the present standard of 
the language, and against any other than a very literal translation. 
If it could be supposed that our language had not yet attained a 
fixed state, but would progressively change for ages to come, it would 
be desirable that the translation of the Bible should always continue, 
except in what might essentially affect the sense, a century or two 
behind, for the sake of that venerable air which a shade of antiquity 
confers on the form, of what is so sacred and authoritative in 
substance. But I cannot allow that the same law is to be extended 
to the language of divines. They have no right to assume the same 
ground and the same distinctions as the Bible ; they ought not to 
affect to keep it company. There is no solemn dignity in their 
writings, which can claim to be invested with a venerable peculiarity. 
Imitate the Bible or not, their composition is merely of the ordinary 
human quality, and subject to the same rules as that of their con- 
temporaries who write on other subjects. And if they remain behind 
the advanced state of the classical diction, those contemporaries 
will not allow them to excuse themselves by pretending to identify 
themselves with the Bible 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 247 

acquainted with those authors who have displayed the 
utmost extent and powers of language in its freest 
form : and it is right for them to be told that evan- 
gelical doctrine would incur no necessary corruption or 
profanation by being conveyed in so liberal, diversified, 
and what I may call natural a diction ; a language 
which may be termed the day-light of thought, as 
compared with the artificial lights of the peculiar 
dialect. — With regard also to a considerable proportion 
of christian readers and hearers, I am sensible that a 
reformed language would be excessively strange to 
them. But may I not allege, without any affectation 
of paradox, that its being so strange to them would be 
a proof that it is quite time it were adopted ? For the 
manner in which some of vhern would receive this 
altered dialect, would prove that the customary phra- 
seology had scarcely given them any clear notions. It 
would be found, as I have observed before, that to them 
the peculiar phrases had been not so much the vehicles 
of ideas, as substitutes for them. So undefined has 
been their understanding of the sense, while they me- 
chanically chimed to the sound, that if they hear the 
very ideas which these phrases signify, or did or should 
signify, expressed ever so plainly in other language, 
they do not recognise them ; and are instantly on the 
alert with the epithets, sound, orthodox, and all the 
watch-words of ecclesiastical suspicion. For such 
christians, the diction is the convenient asylum of ig- 
norance, indolence, and prejudice. 

But I have enlarged far beyond my intention, which 
was only to represent, with a short illustration, that 
this peculiar dialect is unfavourable to a cordial re- 
ception of evangelical doctrines in minds of cultivated 
taste. This I know to be a fact from many observations 
in real life, especially among intellectual young persons, 



24-8 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

not altogether regardless of serious subjects, and not 
seduced, though not out of danger of being so, by the 
cavils against the divine authority of Christianity itself. 

After dismissing the consideration of the language, 
which has unfortunately been made the canonical garb 
of religion, I meant to have taken a somewhat more 
general view of the accumulation of bad writing, under 
which the evangelical theology has been buried ; and 
which has contributed to bring its principles in dis- 
favour with too many persons of accomplished mental 
habits. A large proportion of that writing may be 
sentenced as bad, on more accounts than merely the 
peculiarity of dialect. But this is an invidious topic, 
and I shall make only a few observations. 

Proofs of an intellect considerably above the com- 
mon level, with a literary execution disciplined to great 
correctness, and partaking somewhat of elegance, are 
requisite on the lowest terms of acceptance for good 
writing, with cultivated readers. Superlatively strong 
sense will indeed command attention, and even ad- 
miration, in the absence of all the graces, and not- 
withstanding much incorrectness or clumsiness in the 
workmanship of the composition. But when thus 
standing the divested and sole excellence, it must be 
pre-eminently conspicuous to have this power. Below 
this pitch of single or of combined merit, a book 
cannot please persons of discerning judgment and 
refined taste, though its subject be the most interesting 
on earth; and for acceptableness, therefore, the subject 
is unfortunate in coming to those persons in that book. 
A disgusting cup will spoil the finest element which 
can be conveyed in it, though that were the nectar of 
immortality. 

Now, in this view, I suppose it will be acknowledged 
that the evangelical cause has been, on the whole, far 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. c 2^9 

from happy in its prodigious list of authors. A 
number of them have displayed a high order of ex- 
cellence ; but one regrets as to a much greater number, 
that they did not revere the dignity of their religion 
too much, to beset and suffocate it with their super- 
fluous offerings. To you I need not expatiate on the 
character of the collective christian library. It will 
have been obvious to you that there is a multitude of 
books which form the perfect vulgar of religious 
authorship ; a vast exhibition of the most subordinate 
materials that can be called thought, in language too 
grovelling to be called style. Some of these writers 
seem to have concluded that the greatness of the 
subject was to do every thing, and that they had but to 
pronounce, like David, the name of " the Lord of 
Hosts," to give pebbles the force of darts and spears. 
Others appear to have really wanted the perception of 
any great difference, in point of excellence, between 
the meaner and the superior modes of writing. If 
they had read alternately Barrow's or South's pages 
and their own, they probably might have doubted on 
which side to assign the palm. A number of them, 
citing, in a perverted sense, the language of St. Paul, 
" not with excellency of speech," " not with enticing 
words of man's wisdom," " not in the words which 
man's wisdom teacheth," expressly disclaim every thing 
that belongs to fine writing, not exactly as what they 
^ould not have attained, but as what they judge incom- 
patible with the simplicity of evangelical truth and 
intentions. In the books of these several but kindred 
classes you are mortified to see how low religious 
thought and expression can sink ; and you almost 
wonder how it was possible for the noblest ideas that 
are known to the sublimest intelligences, the ideas of 
God, of Providence, of redemption, of eternity, to 



250 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

shine on a serious human mind without imparting some 
small occasional degree of dignity to the strain of 
thought. The indulgent feelings, which you entertain 
for the intellectual and literary deficiency of humble 
christians in their religious communications in private, 
are with difficulty extended to those who make for 
their thoughts this demand on public attention : it was 
necessary for them to be christians, but what made it 
their duty to become authors ? Many of the books 
are indeed successively ceasing, with the progress of 
time, to be read or known ; but the new supply con- 
tinually brought forth is so numerous, that a person 
who turns his attention to religious reading is certain 
to meet a variety of them. Now only suppose a man 
who has been conversant and enchanted with the works 
of eloquence, glowing poetry, finished elegance, or 
strong reasoning, to meet a number of these books in 
the outset of his more serious inquiries ; in what light 
would the religion of Christ appear to him, if he did 
not find some happier illustrations of it ? 

There is another large class of christian books, 
which bear the marks of learning, correctness, and 
an orderly understanding ; and by a general pro- 
priety leave but little to be censured ; but which 
display no invention, no prominence of thought, or 
living vigour of expression; all is flat and dry as a 
plain of sand. It is perhaps the thousandth iteration 
of common-places, the listless attention to which is 
hardly an action of the mind ; you seem to understand 
it all, and mechanically assent while you are thinking of 
something else. Though the author has a rich immea- 
surable field of possible varieties of reflection and illus- 
tration around him, he seems doomed to tread over again 
the narrow space of ground long since trodden to dust, 
and in all his movements appears clothed in sheets of lead. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 251 

There is a smaller class that might be called mock- 
eloquent writers. These saw the effect of brilliant ex- 
pression in those works of eloquence and poetry where 
it was dictated and animated by energy of thought ; 
and very reasonably wished that christian sentiments 
might assume a language as impressive as any subject 
had ever employed to fascinate or command. But un- 
fortunately they forgot that eloquence resides essentially 
in the thought, and that no words can make genuine 
eloquence of that which would not be such in the 
plainest that could fully express the sense. Or proba- 
bly, they were quite confident of the excellence of the 
thoughts that were demanding to be so finely sounded 
forth. Perhaps they concluded them to be vigorous 
and sublime from the very circumstance, that they 
disdained to show themselves in plain language. The 
writers would be but little inclined to suspect of poverty 
or feebleness the thoughts which seemed so naturally 
to be assuming, in their minds and on their page, such 
a magnificent style. A gaudy verbosity is always elo- 
quence in the opinion of him that writes it ; but what 
is the effect on the reader ?* Real eloquence strikes 
with immediate force, and leaves not the possibility of 
asking or thinking whether it be eloquence ; but the 
sounding sentences of these writers leave you cool 
enough to examine with doubtful curiosity a language 
that seems threatening to move or astonish you, with- 
out actually doing so. It is something like the case of 
a false alarm of thunder ; where a sober man, who is 
not apt to startle at sounds, looks out to see whether it 
be not the rumbling of a cart. Very much at your 
ease, you contrast the pomp of the expression with the 

* I should be accurate, and say, the reader of disciplined judgment 
and good taste ; for it is true enough that readers are not wanting, 
nor few, who can be taken with glare and bombast. 



252 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

quality of the thoughts ; and then read on for amuse- 
ment, or cease to read from disgust. In a serious hour, 
indeed, the feelings both of amusement and disgust 
give place to the regret, that it should be in the power 
of bad writing to bring the most important subjects in 
danger of something worse than failing to interest. 
The unpleasing effect it has on your own mind will 
lead you to apprehend its having a very injurious one 
on many others. 

A principal device in the fabrication of this style, 
is, to multiply epithets, dry epithets, laid on the surface, 
and into wmich no vitality of the sentiment is found to 
circulate. You may take a number of the words out 
of each page, and find that the sense is neither more 
nor less for your having cleared the composition of these 
epithets of chalk of various colours, with which the tame 
thoughts had submitted to be dappled and made fine. 

Under the denomination of mock- eloquence may 
also be placed the mode of writing w T hich endeavours 
to excite the passions, not by presenting striking ideas 
of the object of passion, but by the appearance of an 
emphatical enunciation of the writer's own feelings 
concerning it. You are not made to perceive how the 
thing itself has the most interesting claims on your 
heart ; but are required to be affected in mere sympathy 
with the author, who attempts your feelings by frequent 
exclamations, and perhaps by an incessant application 
to his fellow- mortals, or to their Redeemer, of all the 
appellations and epithets of passion, and sometimes of 
a kind of passion not appropriate to the object. To 
this last great Object, especially, such forms of ex- 
pression are occasionally applied, as must excite a 
revolting emotion in a man who feels that he cannot 
meet the same being at once on terms of adoration and 
of caressing equality 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 253 

It would be going beyond my purpose, to carry my 
remarks from the literary merits, to the moral and 
theological characteristics, of christian books ; else a 
very strange account could be given of the injuries 
which the gospel has suffered from its friends. You 
might often meet with a systematic writer, in whose 
hands the whole wealth, and variety, and magnificence, 
of revelation, shrink into a meagre list of doctrinal 
points, and who will let no verse in the Bible tell its 
meaning, or presume to have one, till it has taken its 
stand by one of those points. You may meet with a 
christian polemic, who seems to value the arguments 
for evangelical truth as an assassin values his dagger, 
and for the same reason ; with a descanter on the in- 
visible world, who makes you think of a popish cathe- 
dral, and from the vulgarity of whose illuminations you 
are glad to escape into the solemn twilight of faith ; or 
with a grim zealot for such a theory of the divine at- 
tributes and government, as seems to delight in repre- 
senting the Deity as a dreadful king of furies, whose 
dominion is overshaded with vengeance, whose music 
is the cries of victims, and whose glory requires to be 
illustrated by the ruin of his creation. 

It is quite unnecessary to say, that the list of ex- 
cellent christian writers would be very considerable. 
But as to the vast mass of books that would, by the 
consenting adjudgment of all men of liberal cultivation, 
remain after this deduction, one cannot help deploring 
the effect which they must have had on unknown thou- 
sands of readers. It would seem beyond all question 
that books which, though even asserting the essential 
truths of Christianity, yet utterly preclude the full im- 
pression of its character ; which exhibit its claims on 
admiration and affection with insipid feebleness of 
sentiment ; or which cramo its simple majesty into an 



254? ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

artificial form at once distorted and mean ; must be 
seriously prejudicial to the influence of this sacred 
subject, though it be admitted that many of them have 
sometimes imparted a measure both of instruction and 
of consolation. This they might do, and yet at the 
same time convey extremely contracted and inadequate 
ideas of the subject.* There are a great many of them 
into which an intelligent christian cannot look without 
rejoicing that they were not the books from which he 
received his impressions of the glory of his religion. 
There are many which nothing would induce him, even 
though he did not materially differ from them in the 
leading articles of his belief, to put into the hands of an 
inquiring young person ; which he would be sorry and 
ashamed to see on the table of an infidel ; and some of 
which he regrets to think may still contribute to keep 
down the standard of religious taste, if I may so express 
it, among the public instructors of mankind. On the 
whole it would appear, that a profound veneration for 
Christianity would induce the wish, that, after a judicious 
selection of books had been made, the Christians also 
had their Caliph Omar, and their General Amrou. 



LETTER V. 

The injurious causes which I have thus far con- 
sidered, are associated immediately with the object, 
and, by misrepresenting it, render it less acceptable to 
refined taste ; but there are others, which operate by 
perverting the very principles of this taste itself, so as 

* It is true enough that on every other subject, on which a multi- 
tude of books have been written, there must have been many which 
in a literary sense were bad. But I cannot help thinking that the 
number coming under this description, bear a larger proportion to 
the excellent ones in the religious department than any other. One 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. c 255 

to put it in antipathy to the religion of Christ, even 
though presented in its own full and genuine character, 
cleared of all these associations. I shall remark chiefly 
on one of these causes. 

I fear it is incontrovertible, that what is denominated 
Polite Literature, the grand school in which taste 
acquires its laws and refined perceptions, and in which 
are formed, much more than under any higher austerer 
discipline, the moral sentiments, is, for the far greater 
part, hostile to the religion of Christ; partly, by intro- 
ducing insensibly a certain order of opinions uncon- 
sonant, or at least not identical, with the principles of 
that religion ; and still more, by training the feelings 
to a habit alien from its spirit. And in this assertion, 
I do not refer to writers palpably irreligious, who have 
laboured and intended to seduce the passions into vice, 
or the judgment into the rejection of divine truth; but 
to the general community of those elegant and ingenious 
authors who are read and admired by the christian 
world, held essential to a liberal education and to the 
progressive accomplishment of the mind in subsequent 
life, and studied often without an apprehension, or even 
a thought, of their injuring the views and temper of 
spirits advancing, with the New Testament for their 
chief instructor and guide, into another world. 

It is modern literature that I have more particularly 
in view ; at the same time, it is obvious that the writ- 
ings of heathen antiquity have continued to operate 
till now, in the very presence and sight of Christianity, 
with their own proper influence, a correctly heathenish 

chief cause of this has been, the mistake by which many good men, 
professionally employed in religion, have deemed their respectable 
mental competence to the office of public speaking, the proof of an 
equal competence to a work which is subjected to much severer 
literary and intellectual laws. 



255 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

influence, on the minds of many who have never thought 
of denying or doubting the truth of that religion. 
This is just as if an eloquent pagan priest had been 
allowed constantly to accompany our Lord in his 
ministry, and had divided with him the attention and 
interest of his disciples, counteracting, of course, as 
far as his efforts were successful, the doctrine and 
spirit of the Teacher from heaven.* 

The few observations which the subject may require 
to be made on ancient literature, will be directed to 
the part of it most immediately descriptive of what 
may be called human reality, representing character, 
sentiment, and action. For it will be allowed, that the 
purely speculative part of that literature has in a great 
measure ceased to interfere with the intellectual disci- 
pline of modern times. It obtains too little attention, 
and too little deference, to contribute materially to the 
formation of the mental habits, which are adverse to 
the christian doctrines and spirit. Divers learned and 

* It is however no part of my object in these letters to remark on 
the influence, in modern times, of the fabulous religion that infested 
the ancient works of genius. That influence is at the present time, 
I should think, extremely small, from the fables being so stale : all 
readers are sufficiently tired of Jupiter, Apollo, Minerva, and the 
rest. As long however as they could be of the smallest service, they 
were piously retained by the christian poets of this and other coun- 
tries, who are now under the necessity of seeking out for some other 
mythology, the northern or the eastern, to support the languishing 
spirit of poetry. Even the ugly pieces of wood, worshipped in the 
South Sea Islands, will probably at last receive names that may 
more comm odiously hitch into verse, and be invoked to adorn and 
sanctify the belles lettres of the next century. The Mexican abomi- 
nations and infernalities have already received from us their epic 
tribute. The poet has no reason to fear that the supply of gods may 
fail ; it is at the same time a pity, one thinks, that a creature so 
immense should have been placed in a world so small as this, where 
all nature, all history, all morals, all true religion, and the whole 
resources of innocent fiction, are too little to furnish materials 
enough for the wants and labours of his genius. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 25/ 

fanatical devotees to antiquity and paganism, have 
indeed made some effort to recall the long departed 
veneration for the dreams and subtleties of ancient 
philosophy. But they might with as good a prospect 
of success recommend the building of temples or a 
pantheon, and the revival of the institutions of idola- 
trous worship. The greater number of intelligent, 
and even learned men, would feel but little regret in 
consigning the largest proportion of that philosophy to 
oblivion ; unless they may be supposed to like it as 
heathenism more than they admire it as wisdom ; or 
unless their pride would wish to retain a reminiscence 
of it for contrast to their own more rational philoso- 
phizing. 

The ancient speculations of the religious order in- 
clude indeed some splendid ideas relating to a Supreme 
Being ; but these ideas impart no attraction to that 
immensity of inane and fantastic follies from the chaos 
of which they stand out, as of nobler essence and 
origin. For the most part they probably were tra- 
ditionary remains of divine communications to man in 
the earliest ages. A few of them were, possibly, the 
utmost efforts of human intellect, at some happy 
moments excelling itself. But in whatever proportions 
they be referred to the one origin or the other, they 
stand so distinguished from the accumulated multi- 
farious vanities of pagan speculation on the subject of 
Deity, that they throw contempt on those speculations. 
They throw contempt on the greatest part of the theo- 
logical dogmas and fancies of even the very philosophers 
who would cite and applaud them. They rather direct 
our contemplation and affection toward a religion di- 
vinely revealed, than obtain any degree of favour for 
those notions of the Divinity, which sprang and inde- 
finitely multiplied from a melancholy combination of 

s 



258 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

ignorance and depraved imagination. As to the ap- 
parent analogy between certain particulars in the pagan 
religions, and some of the most specific articles of 
Christianity, those notions are presented in such fan- 
tastic, and varying, and often monstrous shapes, that 
they can be of no prejudice to the christian faith, either 
by pre-oceupying in our minds the place of the christian 
doctrines, or by indisposing us to admit them, or by 
perverting our conception of them. 

As to the ancient metaphysical speculation, whatever 
may be the tendency of metaphysical study in general, 
or of the particular systems of modern philosophers, 
as affecting the cordial and simple admission of christian 
doctrines, the ancient metaphysics may certainly be pro- 
nounced inoperative and harmless. If it were possible 
to analyze the mass of what may be termed our effective 
literature, so as to ascertain what elements and inter- 
fusions in it have been of influential power, and in what 
respective proportions, in forming our habits of thinking 
and feeling, it is probable that a very small share would 
be found derived from the ideal theories of the old 
philosophers. It is probable also, that in future not 
one of a thousand men, cultivated in a respectable 
degree, will ever take the trouble of a resolute and 
persisting effort to master those speculations. Besides 
the too prevailing and still increasing indisposition to 
metaphysical study in any school, there is a settled con- 
viction that those speculations were baseless and useless, 
and that whoever aspires to the high and abstracted 
wisdom must learn it from the later philosophers. And 
as the only thing we can seek and value in pure ab- 
stracted speculations is truth, when the persuasion of 
their truth is gone their attraction and influence are 
extinct. That which could please the imagination or 
interest the aflfectuns, might in a considerable degree 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 259 

continue to please and interest them, though convicted 
of much fallacy. But that which is too subtile and 
intangible to please the imagination, loses all its power 
when it is rejected by the judgment. This is the pre- 
dicament to which time has reduced the metaphysics of 
the old philosophers. The captivation of their systems 
seems almost as far withdrawn from us as the songs of 
their Syrens, or the enchantments ot Medea. 

While these thin speculations have been suspended 
in air. taking all the forms and colours of clouds or 
rainbows, meteors or fogs, the didactic morality of some 
of the ancient philosophers, faithfully keeping to the 
solid ground of human interests, has doubtless had a 
considerable influence on the moral sentiments of cul- 
tivated men, progressively on to the present time. A 
certain quality, derived from it into literature, has per- 
petuated its operation indirectly on many who are not 
conversant with it immediately at its origin. But it 
may have a considerable direct influence on those who 
are in acquaintance with the great primary moralists 
themselves. After a long detention among the vagaries 
and monsters of mythology, or a bewildered adventure 
in the tenebrious and fantastic region of ancient meta- 
physics, in chase of that truth which the pursuer some- 
times thinks, though doubtfully, that he sees, but which 
still eludes him, the student of antiquity is gratified at 
meeting with a sage who leads him among interesting 
realities, and discourses to him in plain and impressive 
terms of direct instruction concerning moral principles 
and the means of happiness. And since it is necessarily 
the substantial object of this instruction to enforce 
virtue, excellence, goodness, he feels little apprehension 
of any vitiating effect on his moral sentiments. He 
entirely forgets that moral excellence, or virtue, has 
been defined and enforced by another authority; and 

s 2 



260 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

that though a large portion of the scheme must be, as 
matter of practice, mainly the same in the dictates of 
that authority, and in the writings of Epictetus, or 
Cicero, or Antoninus, yet there is a specific difference 
of substance in certain particulars, and a most im- 
portant one in the principles that constitute the general 
basis. While he is admiring the beauty of virtue as 
displayed by one accomplished moralist, and its lofty 
independence as exhibited by another, he is not admo- 
nished to suspect that any thing in their sentiments, or 
his animated coalescence with them, can be wrong. 

But the part of ancient literature which has had in 
comparably the greatest influence on the character of 
cultivated minds, is that which has turned, if I may so 
express it, moral sentiments into real beings and inter- 
esting companions, by displaying the life and actions 
of eminent individuals. A few of the personages of 
fiction are also to be included. The captivating spirit 
of Greece and Rome dwells in the works of the biogra- 
phers ; in so much of the history as might properly be 
called biography, from its fixing the whole attention 
and interest on a few signal names ; and in the works 
of the principal poets. 

No one, I suppose, will deny, that both the characters 
and the sentiments, which are the favourites of the 
poet and the historian, become the favourites also of 
the admiring reader ; for this would be a virtual denial 
of the excellence of the performance, in point of elo- 
quence or poetic spirit. It is the high test and proof 
of genius that a writer can render his subject interesting 
to his readers, not merely in a general way, but in the 
very same manner in which it interests himself. If the 
great works of antiquity had not this power, they would 
long since have ceased to charm. We could not long 
tolerate what caused a revolting of our moral feelings, 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 261 

while it was designed to please them. But if their 
characters and sentiments really do thus fascinate the 
heart, how far will this influence be coincident with the 
spirit and with the design of Christianity ?* 

Among the poets, I shall notice only the two or three 
pre-eminent ones of the Epic class. Homer, you 
know, is the favourite of the whole civilized world ; 
and it is many centuries since there needed one addi- 
tional word of homage to the prodigious genius dis- 
played in the Iliad. The object of inquiry is, what 
kind of predisposition will be formed toward Chris- 
tianity in a young and animated spirit, that learns to 
glow with enthusiasm at the scenes created by the 
poet, and to indulge an ardent wish, which that enthu- 
siasm will probably awaken, for the possibility of emu- 
lating some of the principal characters ? Let this 
susceptible youth, after having mingled and burned in 
imagination among heroes, whose valour and anger 
flame like Vesuvius, who wade in blood, trample on 
dying foes, and hurl defiance against earth and heaven ; 
let him be led into the company of Jesus Christ and 
his disciples, as displayed by the evangelists, with whose 
narrative, I will suppose, he is but slightly acquainted 
before. What must he, what can he, do with his 
feelings in this transition ? He will find himself flung 
as far as " from the centre to the utmost pole ;" and one 
of these two opposite exhibitions of character will in- 
evitably excite his aversion. Which of them is that 
likely to be, if he is become thoroughly possessed with 
the Homeric passions ? 

* It may be noticed here that a great part of what could be said 
on heathen literature as opposed to the religion of Christ, must 
necessarily refer to the peculiar moral spirit of that religion. It 
would border on the ridiculous to represent the martial enthusiasm ' 
of ancient historians and poets as counteracting the peculiar doctrines 
of the gospel, meaning by the term those dictates of truth that do 
not directly involve moral distinctions. 



262 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

Or if, reversing the order, you will suppose a person 
to have first become profoundly interested by the New 
Testament, and to have acquired the spirit of the 
Saviour of the world, while studying the evangelical 
history ; with what sentiments will he come forth from 
conversing with heavenly mildness, weeping benevo- 
lence, sacred purity, and the eloquence of divine wisdom, 
to enter into a scene of such actions and characters, 
and to hear such maxims of merit and glory, as those 
of Homer ? He would be still more confounded bv 
the transition, had it been possible for him to have en- 
tirely escaped that deep depravation of feeling which 
can think of crimes and miseries with little emotion, 
and which wc have all acquired from viewing the pro- 
minent portion of the world's history as composed of 
scarcely any thing else. He would find the mightiest 
strain of poetry employed to represent ferocious courage 
as the greatest of virtues, and those who do not possess 
it as worthy of their fate, to be trodden in the dust. 
He will be taught, at least it will not be the fault of the 
poet, if he be not taught, to forgive a heroic spirit for 
finding the sweetest luxury in insulting dying pangs, 
and imagining the tears and despair of distant relations. 
He will be incessantly called upon to worship revenge, 
the real divinity of the Iliad, in comparison of which 
the Thunderer of Olympus is but a subaltern pre- 
tender to power. He will be taught that the most 
glorious and enviable life is that, to which the greatest 
number of other lives are made a sacrifice ; and that it 
is noble in a hero to prefer even a short life attended 
by this felicity, to a long one which should permit a 
longer life also to others. The terrible Achilles, a 
being whom, if he had really existed, it had been worth 
a temporary league of the tribes then called nations to 
reduce to the quietness of a dungeon or a tomb, is 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 263 

rendered interesting even amidst the horrors of revenge 
and destruction, by the intensity of his affection for 
his friend, by the melancholy with which he appears in 
the funeral scene of that friend, by one momentary 
instance of compassion, and by his solemn references 
to his own impending and inevitable doom. A reader who 
has even passed beyond the juvenile ardour of life, feels 
himself interested, in a manner that excites at intervals 
his own surprise, in the fate of this fell exterminator ; 
and he wonders, and he wishes to doubt, whether the 
moral that he is learning, be, after all, exactly no other 
than that the grandest employment of a great spirit is 
the destruction of human creatures, so long as revenge, 
ambition, or even caprice, may choose to regard them 
under an artificial distinction, and call them enemies. 
But this, my dear friend, is the real and effective moral 
of the Iliad, after all that critics have so gravely written 
about lessons of union, or any other subordinate moral 
instructions, which they discover or imagine in the 
work. Who but critics ever thought or cared about 
any such drowsy lessons ? Whatever is the chief and 
grand impression made by the whole work on the 
ardent minds which are most susceptible of the in- 
fluence of poetry, that shows the real moral ; and 
Alexander, and Charles XII. through the medium of 
" Macedonia's madman," correctly received the genuine 
inspiration. 

If it be said, that such works stand on the same 
ground, except as to the reality or accuracy of the 
facts, with an eloquent history, which simply exhibits 
the actions and characters, I deny the assertion. The 
actions and characters are presented in a manner which 
prevents their just impression, and empowers them to 
make an opposite one. A transforming magic of genius 
displays a number of atrocious savages in a hideous 



26± ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

slaughter-house of men, as demi-gocls in a temple of 
glory. No doubt an eloquent history might be so 
written as to give the same aspect to such men, and 
such operations ; but that history would deserve to be 
committed to the flames. A history that should give 
a faithful representation of miseries and slaughter, 
would set no one, who had not attained the last depra- 
vation, on fire to imitate the principal actors. It would 
excite in a degree the same emotion as the sight of a 
field of dead and dying men after a battle is over; a 
sight at which the soul would shudder and revolt, and 
earnestly wish that this might be the last time the sun 
should behold such a spectacle : but the tendency of 
the Homeric poetry, and of a great part of epic poetry 
in general, is to insinuate the glory of repeating such a 
tragedy. I therefore ask again, how it would be pos- 
sible for a man whose mind was first completely assimi- 
lated to the spirit of Jesus Christ, to read such a work 
without a most vivid antipathy to what he perceived to 
be the moral spirit of the poet ? And if it were not too 
strange a supposition, that the most characteristic parts 
of the Iliad had been read in the presence and hearing 
of our Lord, and by a person animated by a fervid 
sympathy with the work — do you not instantly imagine 
Him expressing the most emphatical condemnation ? 
Would not the reader have been made to know, that in 
the spirit of that book he could never become a disciple 
and a friend of the Messiah? But then, if he believed 
this declaration, and were serious enough to care about 
being the disciple and friend of the Messiah, would he 
not have deemed himself extremely unfortunate to 
have been seduced, through the pleasures of taste and 
imagination, into habits of feeling which rendered it 
impossible, till their predominance should be de- 
stroyed, for him to receive the only true religion, and 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 265 

the only Redeemer of the world ? To show how 
impossible it would be, I w r ish I may be pardoned for 
making another strange and indeed a most monstrous 
supposition, namely, that Achilles, Diomede, Ulysses, 
and Ajax had been real persons, living in the time of 
our Lord, and had become his disciples, and yet, 
(excepting the mere exchange of the notions of my- 
thology for christian opinions,) had retained entire 
the state of mind with which their poet has exhibited 
them. It is instantly perceived that Satan, Beelzebub, 
and Moloch might as consistently have been retained 
in heaven. But here the question comes to a point : if 
these great examples of glorious character pretending 
to coalesce with the transcendent Sovereign of virtues, 
would have been probably the most enormous incon- 
gruity existing, or that ever had existed, in the creation, 
what harmony can there be between a man who has 
acquired a considerable degree of congeniality with the 
spirit of these heroes, and that paramount Teacher and 
Pattern of excellence ? And who will assure me that 
the enthusiast for heroic poetry does not acquire a 
degree of this congeniality ? But unless I can be so 
assured, I necessarily persist in asserting the noxious- 
ness of such poetry. 

Yet the work of Homer is, notwithstanding, the 
book which christian poets have translated, which 
christian divines have edited and commented on with 
pride, at which christian ladies have been delighted to 
see their sons kindle into rapture, and w T hich forms an 
essential part of the course of a liberal education, over 
all those countries on which the gospel shines. And 
who can tell how much that passion for war which, 
from the universality of its prevalence, might seem 
inseparable from the nature of man, may have been, 
in the civilized world, reinforced by the enthusiastic 



266 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

admiration with which young men have read Homer, 
and similar poets, whose genius transforms what is, and 
ought always to appear purely horrid, to an aspect of 
grandeur? Should it be asked, What ought to be the 
practical consequence of such observations ? I may 
surely answer that I cannot justly be required to assign 
that consequence. I cannot be required to do more 
than exhibit in a simple light an important point of 
truth. If such works do really impart their own spirit 
to the mind of an admiring reader, and if this spirit 
be totally hostile to that of Christianity, and if Christi- 
anity ought really and in good faith to be the supreme 
regent of all moral feeling, then it is evident that the 
Iliad, and all books which combine the same tendency 
with great poetical excellence, are among the most 
mischievous things on earth. There is but little satis- 
faction, certainly, in illustrating the operatiou of evils 
without proposing any adequate method of contending 
with them. But in the present case, I really do not 
see what a serious observer of the character of mankind 
can offer. To wish that the works of Homer, and some 
other great authors of antiquity, should cease to be 
read, is just as vain as to wish they had never been 
written. As to the far greater number of readers, it 
were equally in vain to wish that pure christian senti- 
ments might be sufficiently recollected, and loved, to 
accompany the study, and constantly prevent the in- 
jurious impression, of the works of pagan genius. The 
few maxims of Christianity to which the student may 
have assented without thought, and for which he has 
but little veneration, will but feebly oppose the in- 
fluence ; the spirit of Homer will vanquish as irre- 
sistibly as his Achilles vanquished. It is also most 
perfectly true, that as long as pride, ambition, and 
vindictiveness, hold so mighty a prevalence in the 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 267 

character and in the nature of our species, they would 
still amply display themselves, though the stimulus of 
heroic poetry were withdrawn, by the annihilation of 
all those works which have invested the worst passions 
and the worst actions with a glare of grandeur. With 
or without the infections of heroic poetry, men and 
nations will continue to commit offences against one 
another, and to avenge them ; to assume an arrogant 
precedence, and account it and laud it as noble spirit ; 
to celebrate their deeds of destruction, and call them 
glory; to idolize the men who possess, and can infuse, 
the greatest share of an infernal fire ; to set at nought 
all principles of virtue and religion in favour of some 
thoughtless vicious mortal who consigns himself in the 
same achievement to fame and perdition ; to vaunt in 
triumphal entries, or funeral pomps, or bombastic odes, 
or strings of scalps, how far human skill and valour 
can surpass the powers of famine and pestilence ; men 
and nations will continue thus to act, till a mightier 
intervention from heaven shall establish the dominion 
of Christianity. In that better season, perhaps the 
great works of ancient genius will be read in such a 
disposition of mind as can receive the intellectual im- 
provement derivable from them, and at the same time 
as little coincide or be infected with their moral spirit, 
as in the present age we venerate their mythological 
vanities. 

In the mean time, one cannot believe that any man, 
who seriously reflects how absolutely the religion of 
Christ claims a conformity of his whole nature, will 
without regret feel himself animated with a class of 
sentiments, of which the habitual prevalence would be 
the total preclusion of Christianity. 

And it seems to show how little this religion is 
really understood, or even considered, in any of the 



268 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

countries denominated christian, that so many who 
profess to adopt it never once thought of guarding 
their own minds, and those of their children, against 
Jie eloquent seductions of so opposite a spirit. Pro- 
bably they would be more intelligent and vigilant, if 
any other interest than that of their professed religion 
were endangered. But a thing which injures them 
only in that concern, is sure to meet with all possible 
indulgence. 

With respect to religious parents and preceptors, 
whose children and pupils are to receive that liberal 
education which must inevitably include the study of 
these great works, it will be for them to accompany 
the youthful readers throughout, with an effort to show 
them, in the most pointed manner, the inconsistency 
of many of the sentiments, both with moral rectitude 
in general, and with the special dictates of Christianity. 
And in order to give the requisite force to those 
dictates, it will be an important duty to illustrate to 
them the amiable tendency, and to prove the awful 
authority, of this dispensation of religion. This careful 
effort will often but partially prevent the mischief; but 
it seems to be all that can be done. 

Virgil's work is a kind of lunar reflection of the 
ardent effulgence of Homer ; surrounded, if I may 
extend the figure, with a beautiful halo of elegance 
and tenderness. So much more refined an order of 
sentiment might have rendered the heroic character 
far more attractive, to a mind that can soften as well 
as glow, if there had actually been a hero in the poem. 
But none of the personages intended for heroes take 
hold enough of the reader's feelings to assimilate them 
in moral temper. No fiction or history of human cha- 
racters and actions will ever powerfully transfuse its 
spirit, without some one or some very few individuals 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 269 

of signal peculiarity or greatness, to concentrate and 
embody the whole energy of the work. There would 
be no danger therefore of any one's becoming an 
idolater of the god of war through the inspiration of 
the iEneid, even if a larger proportion of it had re- 
sounded with martial enterprise. Perhaps the chief 
counteraction to christian sentiments which I should 
apprehend to an opening susceptible mind, would be a 
depravation of its ideas concerning the other world, 
from the picturesque scenery which Virgil has opened 
to his hero in the regions of the dead, and the imposing 
images with which he has shaded the avenue to them. 
Perhaps also the affecting sentiments which precede 
the death of Dido, might tend to lessen, especially in 
a pensive mind, the horror of that impiety which would 
throw back with violence the possession of life, as if 
in reproach to its great Author, for having suffered 
that there should be unhappiness in a world where 
there is sin. 



LETTER VI. 

In naming Lucan, I am not unaware that an avowal 
of high admiration may hazard all credit for correct 
discernment. I must, however, confess that, in spite 
of his rhetorical ostentation, and all the offences of a too 
inflated style, he does in my apprehension greatly 
surpass all the other ancient poets in direct force of 
the ethical spirit ; and that he would have a stronger 
influence to seduce my feelings, in respect to moral 
greatness, into a discordance from christian principles. 
His leading characters are widely different from those 
of Homer, and of an eminently superior order. The 
mighty genius of Homer appeared and departed in a 



270 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

rude age of the human mind, a stranger to the intel- 
lectual enlargement which would have enabled him to 
combine in his heroes the dignity of thought, instead 
of mere physical force, with the energy of passion. 
For want of this, they are great heroes without being 
great men. They appear to you only as tremendous 
fighting and destroying animals ; a kind of human 
mammoths. The prowess of personal conflict is all 
they can understand and admire, and in their warfare 
their minds never reach to any of the sublimer views 
and results even of war ; their chief and final object 
seems to be the mere savage glory of fighting, and the 
annihilation of their enemies. When the heroes of 
Lucan, both the depraved and the nobler class, are 
employed in war, it seems but a small part of what 
they can do, and what they intend ; they have always 
something further and greater in view than to evince 
their valour, or to riot in the vengeance of victory. 
Ambition as exhibited in Pompey and Caesar seems 
almost to become a grand passion, when compared to 
the contracted and ferocious aim of Homer's chiefs ; 
while this passion, even thus elevated, serves to exalt 
by comparison the far different and nobler sentiments 
and objects of Cato and Brutus. The contempt ol 
death, which in the heroes of the Iliad often seems 
like an incapacity or an oblivion of thought, is in 
Lucan's favourite characters the result, or at least the 
associate, of high philosophic spirit ; and this strongly 
contrasts their courage with that of Homer's warriors, 
which is, (according indeed to his own frequent similes,) 
the reckless daring of wild beasts. Lucan sublimates 
martial into moral grandeur. Even if you could deduct 
from his great men all that which forms the specific 
martial display of the hero, you would find their great- 
ness little diminished ; they would still retain their 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 271 

commanding and interesting aspect. The better class 
of them, amidst war itself, hate and deplore the spirit 
and destructive exploits of war. They are indignant 
at the vices of mankind for compelling their virtue into 
a career in which such sanguinary glories can be ac- 
quired. And while they deem it their duty to exert 
their courage in conflict for a just cause, they regard 
camps and battles as vulgar things, from which their 
ihoughts often turn away into a train of solemn and 
presaging reflections, in which they approach sometimes 
the most elevated sublimity. You have a more absolute 
impression of grandeur from a speech of Cato, than 
from all the mighty exploits that epic poetry ever bla- 
zoned. The eloquence of Lucan's moral heroes does 
not consist in images of triumphs and conquests, but 
in reflections on virtue, sufferings, destiny, and death ; 
and the sentiments expressed in his own name have 
often a melancholy tinge which renders them irre- 
sistibly interesting. He might seem to have felt a 
presage, while musing on the last of the Romans, that 
their poet was soon to follow them. The reader becomes 
devoted both to the poet, and to these illustrious men ; 
but, under the influence of this attachment, he adopts 
all their sentiments, and exults in the sympathy ; for- 
getting, or unwilling, to reflect, whether this state of 
feeling be concordant with the religion of Christ, and 
with the spirit of the apostles and martyrs. The most 
captivating of Lucan's sentiments, to a mind enamoured 
of pensive sublimity, are those concerning death. I 
remember the very principle which I would wish to 
inculcate, that is, the necessity that a believer of the 
gospel should preserve the christian tenour of feeling 
predominant in his mind, and clear of incongruous 
mixture, having struck me with great force amidst the 
enthusiasm w r ith which I read many times over the 



272 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

memorable account of Vulteius, the speech by which 
he inspired his gallant band with a passion for death, 
and the reflections on death with which the poet closes 
the episode. I said to myself, at the suggestion of 
conscience, What are these sentiments with which I am 
glowing ? Are these the just ideas of death ? Are 
they such as were taught by the Divine Author of our 
religion ? Is this the spirit with which St. Paul ap- 
proached his last hour ? And I felt a painful collision 
between this reflection and the passion inspired by the 
poet. I perceived clearly that the kind of interest 
which I felt was no less than a real adoption, for the 
time, of the very same sentiments with which he was 
animated. 

The epic poetry has been selected for the more 
pointed application of my remarks, from the belief 
that it has had a much greater influence on the moral 
sentiments of succeeding ages than all the other poetry 
of antiquity, by means of its impressive display of in- 
dividual great characters. And it will be admitted that 
the moral spirit of the epic poets, taken together, is as 
little in opposition to the christian theory of moral 
sentiments as that of the collective poetry of other 
kinds. Some just and fine sentiments to be found in 
the Greek tragedies are in the tone of the best of the 
pagan didactic moralists. And they infuse themselves 
more intimately into our minds when thus coming warm 
in the course of passion and action, and speaking to us 
with the emphasis imparted by affecting and dreadful 
events ; but still are of less vivid and penetrating charm, 
than as emanating from the insulated magnificence of 
such striking and sublime individual characters as those 
of epic poetry. The mind of the reader does not, from 
those dramatic scenes, retain for months and years an 
animated recollection of some personage whose name 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 273 

constantly recalls the sentiments which he uttered, or 
with which his conduct inspired us. The Greek drama 
is extremely deficient in both grand and interesting 
characters, in any sense of the epithets that should 
imply an imposing or a captivating moral power. Much 
the greatest number of the persons and personages 
brought on the scene are such as we care nothing about, 
otherwise than merely on account of the circumstances 
in which we see them acting or suffering. With few 
exceptions they come on the stage, and go off, without 
possessing us with either admiration or affection. When 
therefore the maxims or reflections which we hear from 
them have an impressive effect, it is less from any com- 
manding quality in the persons, than from the striking, 
and sometimes portentous and fearful situations, that 
the sentiments have their pathos. There are a few 
characters of greater power over our respect and our 
sympathies, who draw us, by virtue of personal qua- 
lities, into a willing communion with them, at times, in 
moral principles and emotions. We are relieved and 
gratified, after passing through so much wickedness, 
misfortune, and inane common-place moralizing, to be 
greeted with fine expressions of justice, generosity, and 
fidelity to a worthy purpose, by persons whom we can 
regard as living realizations of such virtues. It is 
like finding among barbarous nations, (as sometimes 
happens,) some individual or two eminently and un- 
accountably above the level of their tribe, whose in- 
telligence and virtues have, by the contrast and the 
surprise, a stronger attraction than similar qualities 
meeting us in a cultivated community. But the 
delight sometimes kindled by sentiments of magna- 
nimous or gentle virtue, is exceedingly repressed, and 
often quenched, in the reader of the Greek drama, by 
the incessant intrusion of a hideous moral barbarism ; 

T 



27-i ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

especially by the implication of the morality with an 
execrable mythology. There is an odious interference 
of " the gods/' sometimes by their dissensions with one 
another perplexing and confounding the rules of human 
obligation ; often contravening the best intentions and 
efforts ; depriving virtue of all confidence and resource ; 
despising, frustrating, or punishing it ; turning its ex 
ertions and sacrifices to vanity or disaster ; and yet to 
be the objects of devout homage, a homage paid with 
intermingled complaints and reproaches, extorted from 
defeated or suffering virtue, which is trying to be better 
than the gods. Nothing can be more intensely dreary 
than the moral economy as represented in much of that 
drama. Let any one contemplate it as displayed for ex- 
ample, in the Prometheus Chained, or the whole stories 
of CEdipus and Orestes. On the whole I have con- 
ceded much in saying, that a small portion of the 
morality of that drama may have a place with that of 
the best of the didactic moralists. 

I shall not dwell long on the biography ana history, 
since it will be allowed that their influence is very 
nearly coincident with that of the epic poetry. The 
work of Plutarch, the chief of the biographers, (a work 
so necessary, it would seem, to the consolations of a 
christian, that I have read of some learned man de- 
claring, and without any avowed rejection of the Bible, 
that if he were to be cast on a desert island, and could 
have one book, and but one, it should be this,) the work 
of Plutarch delineates a greatness partly of the same 
character as that celebrated by Homer, and partly of the 
more dignified and intellectual kind which is so com- 
manding in the great men of Lucan, several of whom 
indeed are the subjects also of the biographer. Various 
distinctions might, no doubt, be remarked in the im- 
pression made by great characters as illustrated in 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 275 

poetry, and as exposed in the plainness of historical 
record : but I am persuaded that the habits of feeling 
which will grow from admiring the one or the other, will 
be substantially the same as affecting the temper of the 
mind in regard to Christianity. 

A number of the men exhibited by the biographers 
and historians, rose* so eminently above the general 
character of the human race, that their names have 
become inseparably associated with our ideas of moral 
greatness. A thoughtful student of antiquity enters 
this majestic company with an impression of mystical 
awfulness, resembling that of Ezekiel in his vision. In 
this select and revered assembly we include only those 
who were distinguished by elevated virtue, as well as 
powerful talents and memorable actions. Undoubtedly 
the magnificent powers and energy without moral ex- 
cellence, so often displayed on the field of ancient 
history, compel a kind of prostration of the soul in the 
presence of men, whose surpassing achievements seem 
to silence for a while, and but for a while, the sense of 
justice which must execrate their ambition and their 
crimes ; but where greatness of mind seems but se- 
condary to greatness of virtue, as in the examples of 
Phocion, Epaminondas, Aristides, Timoleon, Dion, 
Cimon, and several more, the heart applauds itself for 
feeling an irresistible captivation. This number indeed 
is small, compared with the whole galaxy of renowned 
names; but it is large enough to fill the mind, and to 
give as venerable an impression of pagan greatness, as 
if none of its examples had been the heroes whose fierce 
brilliance lightens through the blackness of their depra- 
vity; or the legislators, orators, and philosophers, whose 
wisdom was degraded by imposture, venality, or vanity, 
A most impressive part of the influence of ancient 
character on modern feelings, is derived from the 

t 2 



276* ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

accounts of two or three of the greatest philosophers, 
whose virtue, protesting and solitary in the times in 
which they lived, whose intense devotedness in the pur- 
suit of wisdom, and whose occasional sublime glimpses 
of apprehension, received from beyond the sphere of 
error in which they were enclosed and benighted, 
present them to the mind with something like the 
venerableness of the prophets of God. Among the 
exhibitions of this kind, it is unnecessary to say that 
Xenophon's Memoir of Socrates stands unrivalled and 
above comparison. 

Sanguine spirits without number have probably been 
influenced in modern times by the ancient history of 
mere heroes ; but persons of a reflective disposition 
have been incomparably more affected by the con- 
templation of those men whose combination of mental 
power with illustrious virtue constitutes the supreme 
glory of heathen antiquity. — And why do I deem the 
admiration of this noble display of moral excellence 
pernicious to these reflective minds, in relation to the 
religion of Christ ? For the simplest possible reason ; 
because the principles of that excellence are not iden- 
tical with the principles of this religion ; as I believe 
every serious and self-observant man who has been 
attentive to them both, will have verified in his own 
experience. He has felt the animation which pervaded 
his soul, in musing on the virtues, the sentiments, and 
the great actions, of these dignified men, suddenly ex- 
piring, when he has attempted to prolong or transfer it 
to the virtues, sentiments, and actions, of the apostles 
of Jesus Christ. Sometimes he has, with mixed wonder 
and indignation, remonstrated with his own feelings, 
and has said, I know there is the highest excellence in 
the religion of the Messiah, and in the characters of 
his most magnanimous followers; and surely it is ex- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 277 

cellence also that attracts me to those other illustrious 
men ; why then cannot I take a full delightful interest 
in them both ? But it is in vain ; he finds this amphi- 
bious devotion impossible. And he will always find it 
so ; for, antecedently to experience, it would be obvious 
that the order of sentiments which animated the one 
form of excellence, is extremely diverse from that which 
is the vitality of the other. If the whole system of a 
christian's sentiments is required to be exactly adjusted 
to the economy of redemption, they must be widely 
different from those of the men, however wise or vir- 
tuous, who never thought or heard of the Saviour of 
the world ; else where is the peculiarity or importance 
of this new dispensation, which does however both 
avow and manifest a most signal peculiarity, and with 
which heaven has connected the signs and declarations 
of infinite importance ? If, again, a christian's grand 
object and solicitude is to please God, this must con- 
stitute his moral excellence, (even though the facts, the 
mere actions, were the same,) of a very different nature 
from that of the men who had not in firm faith any 
god that they cared to please, and whose highest glory 
it might possibly become, that they boldly differed from 
their deities ; as Lucan undoubtedly intended it as the 
most emphatical applause of Cato, that he was the 
inflexible patron and hero of the cause which was the 
aversion of the gods.* If humility is required as a 
characteristic of a christian's mind, he is here again 
placed in a state of contrariety to that self-idolatry, the 
love of glory which accompanied, and was applauded 
as a virtue while it accompanied, almost all the moral 
greatness of the heathens. If a christian lives for 
eternity, and advances towards death with the certain 
expectation of judgment, and of a new and awful world, 

. * Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni. 



278 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

how different must be the essential quality of his serious 
sentiments, as partly created, and wholly pervaded, by 
this mighty anticipation, from the order of feeling of 
the virtuous heathens, who had no positive or sublime 
expectations beyond death. The interior essences, if 
I may so speak, of the two kinds of excellence, sus- 
tained or produced by these two systems of principles, 
are so different, that they will hardly be more con- 
vertible or compatible in the same mind than even ex- 
cellence and turpitude. — Now it appears to me that the 
enthusiasm, with which a mind of deep and thoughtful 
sensibility dwells on the history of sages, virtuous legis- 
lators, and the worthiest class of heroes of heathen 
antiquity, will be found to beguile that mind into an 
order of sentiments congenial with theirs, and therefore 
thus seriously different from the spirit and principles 
of Christianity.* It is not exactly that the judgment 
admits distinct pagan propositions, but the heart insen- 
sibly acquires an unison with many of the sentiments 
which imply those propositions, and are wrong unless 
those propositions be right. It forgets that a different 
state of feeling, corresponding to a greatly different 
scheme of principles, is appointed by the Sovereign 
Judge of all things as (with relation to us) an indis- 
pensable preparation for entering the eternal paradise ;f 

* Should it be pretended that, in admiring pagan excellence, the 
mind takes the mere facts of that excellence, separately from the 
principles, and as far as they are identical with the facts of christian 
excellence, and then, connecting christian principles with them, 
converts the whole ideally into a christian character before it cor- 
dially admires, I appeal to experience that this is not true. If it 
were, the mind would be able to turn with full complacency from an 
affectionate admiration of an illustrious heathen, to admire, in the 
same train of feeling and with still warmer emotion, the excellence 
of St. Paul ; which is not the fact. 

T 1 hope none of these observations will be understood to insinuate 
the impossibility of the future happiness of virtuous heathens. But 
a question on that subject would here be out of place. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION 279 

and that now, no moral distinctions, however splendid, 
are excellence in his sight, if not conformed to his 
declared standard. It slides into a persuasion that, 
under any economy, to be like one of those heathen 
examples should be a competent fitness for any world 
to which good spirits are to be assigned. The devoted 
admirer contemplates them as the most enviable spe- 
cimens of his nature, and almost wishes he could have 
been one of them ; without reflecting that this would 
probably have been under the condition, among many 
other circumstances, of adoring Jupiter, Bacchus, or 
iEsculapius, and yet despising the deities that he adored ; 
and under the condition of being a stranger to the Son 
of God, and to all that he has disclosed and accom- 
plished for the felicity of our race. It would even 
throw an ungracious chill on his ardour, if an evan- 
gelical monitor should whisper, " Remember Jesus 
Christ," and express his regret that these illustrious 
men could not have been privileged to be elevated into 
christians. If precisely the word " elevated'' were used, 
the admonished person might have a feeling, at the 
instant, as if it were not the right word. But this 
state of mind is no less in effect than hostility to the 
gospel, which these feelings are practically pronouncing 
to be at least unnecessary ; and therefore that noblest 
part of ancient literature which tends to produce it, is 
inexpressibly injurious. It had been happy for many 
cultivated and aspiring minds, if the men whose cha- 
racters are the moral magnificence of the classical his- 
tory, had been such atrocious villains, that their names 
could not have been recollected without execration. 
Nothing can be more disastrous than to be led astray 
by eminent virtue and intelligence, which can give a 
sense of congeniality with grandeur in the deviation. 
It will require a very affecting impression of the 



280 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

christian truth, a decided conception of the christian 
character, and a habit of thinking with sympathetic 
admiration of the most elevated class of christians, to 
preserve the genuine evangelical spirit amidst this ideal 
society with personages who might pardonably have 
been esteemed of the noblest form of human nature, 
if a revelation had not been received from heaven. 
Some views of this excellence it were in vain for a 
christian to forbid himself to admire ; but he must 
learn to admire under a discriminative restriction, else 
the emotion involves a desertion of his cause. He 
must learn to assign these men in thought to another 
sphere, and to regard them as beings under a different 
economy with which our relations are dissolved ; as 
wonderful examples of a certain imperfect kind of 
moral greatness, formed on a model foreign to true 
religion, and which is crumbled to dust and given to 
the winds. — At the same time, he may well, while 
beholding some of these men, deplore that if so much 
excellence could be formed on such a model, the sacred 
system which gives the acknowledged exemplar for his 
own character should not have far more assimilated him 
to heaven. — So much for the effect of the most inter- 
esting part of ancient literature. 

In the next letter I shall make some observations on 
modern polite literature, in application of the same 
rule of judgment. Many of them must unavoidably 
be very analogous to those already made; since the 
greatest number of the modern fine writers acquired 
much of the character of their minds from those of 
the ancient world. Probably indeed the ancients have 
exerted a much more extensive influence in modern 
times by means of the modern writers to whom they 
have communicated their moral spirit, than immediately 
bv their own works. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 28 J 



LETTER VII. 

To a man who had long observed the influences 
which tyrannize over human passions and opinions, it 
would not perhaps have appeared strange, that when 
the Grand Renovator came on earth, and during the 
succeeding ages, a number of the men whose superior 
talents were to carry on the course of literature, and 
promote and guide the progress of the human mind, 
should reject his religion. These I have placed out of 
the question, as it is not my object to show the injuries 
done to Christianity by its avowed enemies. But it 
might have been expected, that all the intelligent men, 
from that hour to the end of time, who should really 
admit the truth of this religion, would perceive the 
sovereignty and universality of its claims, feel that 
every thing unconsonant with it ought instantly to 
vanish from the whole system of approved sentiments 
and the whole school of literature, and to keep as 
clearly aloof as the Israelites from the boundary that 
guarded the sanctity of Mount Sinai. It might have 
been presumed, that all principles which the new dis- 
pensation rendered obsolete, or declared or implied to 
be wrong, should no more be regarded as belonging 
to the system of principles to be henceforward received 
and taught, than dead bodies in their graves belong to 
the race of living men. To retain or recall them would 
therefore be as offensive to the judgment, as to take up 
these bodies and place them in the paths of men would 
be offensive to the senses ; and as absurd as the practice 
of the ancient Egyptians, who made their embalmed 
ancestors their companions at their festivals. It might 
have been supposed, that whatever Christianity had 



282 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

actually substituted, abolished, or supplied, would 
therefore be practically regarded by these believers 
of it as substituted, abolished, or supplied; and that 
they would, in all their writings, be at least as careful 
of their fidelity in this great article, as an adherent to 
the Newtonian philosophy would be certain to exclude, 
from his scientific discourse, all notions that seriously 
implied the Ptolemaic or the Tychonic system to be 
true. Necessarily, a number of these literary believers 
would write on subjects so completely foreign to what 
comes within the cognizance of Christianity, that a pure 
neutrality, which should avoid all interference with it, 
would be all that could be claimed from them in its 
behalf; though at the same time, one should feel some 
degree of regret, to see a man of enlarged mind 
exhausting his ability and his life on these foreign 
subjects, without devoting some short interval to the 
service of that which he believes to be of far sur- 
passing moment.* 

But the great number who chose to write on subjects 

* I could not help feeling a degree of this regret in reading lately 
the memoirs of the admirable and estimable Sir William Jones. 
Some of his researches in Asia have incidentally served the cause of 
religion ; but did he think that nothing more remained possible to 
be done in service to Christianity, that his accomplished mind wa3 
left at leisure for hymns to the Hindoo gods ? Was not this even 
a violation of the neutrality, and an offence, not only against the 
gospel, but against theism itself? I know what may be said about 
personification, license of poetry, and so on ; but should not a wor- 
shipper of God hold himself under a solemn obligation to abjure all 
tolerance of even poetical figures that can seriously seem, in any 
way whatever, to recognise the pagan divinities — or abominations, 
as the prophets of Jehovah would have called them ? What would 
Elijah have said to such an employment of talents in his time? It 
would have availed little to have told him that these divinities were 
only personifications (with their appropriate representative idols) of 
objects in nature, of elements, or of abstractions. He would have 
sternly replied, And was not Baal, whose prophets I destroyed, the 
same ? 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION 283 

that come within the relations of the christian system, 
as on the various views of morals, the distinctions and 
judgments of human character, and the theory of hap- 
piness, with almost unavoidable references sometimes 
to our connexion with Deity, to death, and to a future 
state, ought to have written every page under the re- 
collection, that these subjects are not left free for 
careless or arbitrary sentiment since the time that 
" God has spoken to us by his Son ;" and that the 
finest composition would be only so much eloquent 
impiety, if essentially discordant with the dictates of 
the New Testament. Had this been a habitual and 
influential recollection with the admired writers of the 
christian world, an ingenuous mind might have been 
conversant alternately with their works and those of 
evangelists and apostles, without being confounded in 
the conflict of antipathy between the inspirations of 
genius and the inspirations of heaven. 

I confine my view chiefly to the elegant literature 
of our own country. And there is a presumption in 
its favour, independently of actual comparison, that it 
is much less exceptionable than the belles lettres of 
the other countries of modern Europe ; for this plain 
reason, that the extended prevalence of the happy light 
of the Reformation through almost the whole period 
of the production of our works of genius and taste, 
must necessarily, by presenting the religion of Christ 
in an aspect more true to its genuine dignity, have 
compelled from the intellectual men who did not deny 
its truth, and could not be entirely ignorant of its most 
essential properties, a kind and degree of respect which 
would not be felt by the same order of men in popish 
countries, whose belief in Christianity was no more 
than a deference to the authority of the church, and 
whose occasional allusions or testimonies to it would 



284 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TAS1JB 

recognise it in no higher character than that in which 
it appears as degraded into a superstition ; so that there 
would be only a fallacious or equivocal glimmer of 
Christianity thrown occasionally on their pages of moral 
sentiment. 

In this assumption in favour of our polite literature, 
against that of the popish countries, I set out of view, 
on both sides, that portion which is of directly immoral 
or infidel tendency ; since it is not at all my object to 
comment on the antichristian effect of the palpably 
vicious part of our literature, but to indicate a certain 
moral and religious insalubrity in much of that which, 
in general account, is for the most part tolerably ac- 
cordant, and in many instances actively subservient, to 
truth and virtue. 

Going over from the vicious and irreligious to the 
directly opposite quarter, neither do I include in the 
literature on which I am animadverting any class of 
authors formally theological, not even the most admired 
sermon writers in our language ; because it is probable 
that works specifically theological have not been ad- 
mitted to constitute more than a small part of that 
school of thinking and taste, in which the generality of 
cultivated men have acquired the moral habitude of 
their minds. That school is composed of poets, moral 
philosophers, historians, essayists, and you may add the 
writers of fiction. If the great majority of these authors 
have injured, and still injure, their pupils in the most 
important of all their interests, it is a very serious con- 
sideration, both in respect to the accountableness of 
the authors, and the final effect on their pupils. I 
maintain that they are guilty of this injury. 

On so wide a field, my dear friend, it would be in 
vain to attempt making particular references and selec- 
tions to verify all these remarks. I must appeal for 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 285 

their truth to your own acquaintance with our popular 
fine writers. 

In the first place, and as a general observation, the 
alleged injury has been done, to a great extent, by 
Omission, or rather it should be called Exclusion. I 
do not refer so much to that unworthy care, maintained 
through the works of our ingenious authors to avoid 
formally treating on any topics of an expressly evan- 
gelical kind, as to the absence of that christian tinge 
and modification, (rendered perceptible partly by a 
plain recognition occasionally of some great christian 
truth, and partly by a solicitous, though it were a tacit, 
conformity to every principle of the christian theory,) 
which should pervade universally the sentiments re- 
garding man as a moral being. Consider how small a 
portion of the serious subjects of thought can be de- 
tached from all connexion with the religion of Christ, 
without narrowing the scope to which he meant it to 
extend, and repelling its intervention where he required 
it should intervene. The book which unfolds it, has 
exaggerated its comprehensiveness, and the first dis- 
tinguished christians had a delusive view of it, if it 
does not actually claim to mingle its principles with 
the whole system of moral ideas, so as to give them a 
special modification ; as the principle of fire, interfused 
through the various forms and combinations of the 
elements, contributes essentially to constitute that 
condition by which they are adapted to their im- 
portant uses, which condition and adaptation therefore 
they would lose if that principle were no longer in- 
herent. 

And this claim for the extensive interference of the 
christian principles, made as a requirement from autho- 
rity, appears to be just in virtue of their own nature. 
For they are not of a nature which necessarily restricts 



286 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

them to a peculiar department, like the principles 
appropriate to some of the sciences. We should at 
once perceive the absurdity of a man who should be 
pretending to adjust all his ideas on general subjects 
according to the rules of geometry, and should main- 
tain (if any man could do so preposterous a thing) that 
geometrical laws ought to be taken as the basis of our 
reasoning on politics and morals. Or, if this be too 
extreme a supposition, let any other class of principles, 
foreign to moral subjects, be selected, in order to show 
how absurd is the effect of an attempt to stretch them 
beyond their proper sphere, and force them into some 
connexion with ideas with which they have no natural 
relation. Let it be shown how such principles can in 
no degree modify the subject to which they are at- 
tempted to be applied, nor mingle with the reasons 
concerning it, but refuse to touch it, like magnetism 
applied to brass. I would then show, on the contrary, 
that the christian principles are of a quality which 
puts them in relation with something in the nature of 
almost all serious subjects. Their introduction into 
those subjects therefore is not an arbitrary and forced 
application of them ; it is merely permitting their cog- 
nizance and interfusion in whatever has some quality 
of a common nature with them. It must be evident in 
a moment that the most general doctrines of Chris- 
tianity, such as those of a future judgment, and immor- 
tality, have a direct relation with every thing that can 
be comprehended within the widest range of moral 
speculation and sentiment. It will also be found that 
the more particular doctrinesj such as those of the 
moral pravity of our nature, an atonement made by 
the sacrifice of Christ, the interference of a special 
divine influence in renewing the human mind, and con- 
ducting it through the discipline for a future state. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 287 

together with all the inferences, conditions, and motives 
resulting from them, cannot be admitted and religiously- 
regarded, without combining in numberless instances 
with a man's ideas on moral subjects. That writer must 
therefore have retired beyond the limits of an immense 
field of important and most interesting speculations, 
indeed beyond the limits of all the speculation most im- 
portant to man, who can say that nothing in the religion 
of Christ bears, in any manner, on any part of his subject, 
any more than if he were a philosopher of Saturn. 

In thus habitually interfering and combining with 
moral sentiments and speculations, the christian prin- 
ciples will greatly modify them. The ideas infused 
from those principles to be combined with the moral 
sentiments, will not appear as simply additional ideas 
in the train of thought, but as also affecting the cha- 
racter of the rest. A writer whose mind is so possessed 
with the christian principles that they continually sug- 
gest themselves in connexion with his serious specu- 
lations, will unavoidably present a moral subject in a 
somewhat different aspect, even when he makes no 
express references to the gospel, from that in which it 
would be presented by another writer, whose habits of 
thought were clear of evangelical recollections. Now 
in every train of thinking in which the recognition of 
those principles would effect this modification, it ought 
to be effected; so that the very last idea within the 
compass of speculation which would have a different 
cast as a ray of the gospel falls, or does not fall, upon 
it, should be faithfully presented in that light. The 
christian principles cannot be true, without determining 
what shall be true in the mode of representing every 
subject in which there is any thing belonging to them 
by essential relation. Obviously, as far as the gospel 
ean go, and does by such relation with things claim to 



288 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

go, with a modifying action, it cannot be a matter of 
indifference whether it do go or not ; for nothing on 
which its application would have this effect, would be 
equally right as so modified and as not so modified. That 
which is made precisely correct by this qualified con- 
dition, must therefore, separately from it, be incorrect. 
He who has sent a revelation to declare the theory of 
sacred truth, and to order the relations of all moral 
sentiment with that truth, cannot give his sanction at 
once to this final constitution, and to that which refuses 
to be conformed to it. He therefore disowns that 
which disowns the religion of Christ. And what he 
disowns he condemns ; thus placing all moral senti- 
ments in the same predicament with regard to the 
christian economy, in which Jesus Christ placed his 
contemporaries, " He that is not with me is against 
me." — The order of ideas dissentient from the christian 
system, presumes the existence, or attempts the creation, 
of some other economy. 

Now, in casting a recollective glance over our elegant 
literature, as far as I am acquainted with it, I cannot help 
thinking that much the greater part falls under this con- 
demnation. After a comparatively small number of 
names and books are excepted, what are called the British 
Classics, with the addition of very many works of great 
literary merit that have not quite attained that rank, 
present an immense vacancy of christianized sentiment. 
The authors do not give signs of having ever deeply 
studied Christianity, or of having been aware that any 
such thing is a duty. Whatever has strongly occupied 
a man's attention, affected his feelings, and filled his 
mind with ideas, will even unintentionally show itself 
in the train and cast of his discourse ; these writers do 
not in this manner betray that their faculties have been 
occupied and interested by the special views unfolded 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 289 

in the evangelic dispensation. Of their coming from 
the contemplation of these views you discover no notices 
analogous, for instance, to those which appear in the 
writing or discourse of a man, who has been passing 
some time amidst the wonders of Rome or Egypt, and 
who shows you, by almost unconscious allusions and 
images occurring in his language even on other subjects, 
how profoundly he has been interested in beholding 
triumphal arches, temples, pyramids, and cemeteries. 
Their minds are not naturalized, if I may so speak, to 
the images and scenery of the kingdom of Christ, or to 
that kind of light which the gospel throws on all objects. 
They are somewhat like the inhabitants of those towns 
within the vast salt mines of Poland, who, seeing every 
object in their region by the light of lamps and candles 
only, have in their conversation hardly any expressions 
describing things in such aspects as never appear but 
under the lights of heaven. You might observe, the 
next time that you open one of these works, how far 
you may read, without meeting with an idea of such a 
nature, or so expressed, as could not have been unless 
Jesus Christ had come into the world ;* though the 
subject in hand may be one of those which he came in 
a special manner to illuminate, and to enforce on the 
mind by new and most cogent arguments. And where 
so little of the light and rectifying influence of these 
communications has been admitted into the habits o; 
thought, there will be very few cordially reverential 
and animated references to the great Instructor himself. 
These will perhaps occur not oftener than a traveller 
in some parts of Africa, or Arabia, comes to a spot of 
green vegetation in the desert. You might have read 

* Except perhaps in respect to humanity and benevolence, on 
which subject his instructions have improved the sentiments of in- 
fidels themselves, in spite of the rejection of their divine authority. 

U 



290 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

a considerable number of volumes, without becoming 
clearly apprised of the existence of the dispensation, or 
that such a sublime Minister of it had ever appeared 
among men. And you might have diligently read, for 
several years, and through several hundred volumes, 
without discovering its nature or importance, or that 
the writers, when alluding to it, acknowledged any 
peculiar and essential importance as belonging to it. 
You would only have conjectured it to be a scheme of 
opinions and discipline-which had appeared, in its day, as 
many others had appeared, and left us, as the others 
have left us, to follow our speculations very much in our 
own way, taking from those schemes, indifferently, any 
notions that we may approve, and facts or fictions that 
we may admire. 

You would have supposed that these writers had 
heard of one Jesus Christ, as they had heard of one 
Confucius, as a teacher whose instructions are admitted 
to contain many excellent things, and to whose system 
i liberal mind will occasionally advert, well pleased to 
see China, Greece, and Judea, as well as England, pro- 
ducing their philosophers, of various degrees and modes 
of illumination, for the honour of their respective coun- 
tries and periods, and for the concurrent promotion of 
human intelligence. All the information which they 
would have supplied to your understanding, and all the 
conjectures to which they might have excited your 
curiosity, would have left you, if not instructed from 
other sources, to meet the real religion itself, when at 
length disclosed to you, as a thing of which you had 
but slight recognition, further than its name ; as a won- 
derful novelty. How little you would have expected, 
from their literary and ethical glimpses, to find the case 
to be, that the system so insignificantly and carelessly 
acknowledged in the course of their fine sentiments, is 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 291 

the actual and sole economy by the provisions of which 
their happiness can be secured, by the laws of which 
they will be judged, which has declared the relations of 
man with his Creator, and specified the exclusive ground 
of acceptance; which is therefore of infinite consequence 
to you, and to them, and to all their readers, as fixing 
the entire theory of the condition and destinies of man 
on the final principles, to which all theories and sen- 
timents are solemnly required to be " brought into 
obedience." 

Now, if the fine spirits, who have thus preserved an 
ample, rich, diversified, crowded province of our litera- 
ture, clear of evangelical intrusion, are really the chief 
instructors of persons of taste, and form, from early life, 
their habits of feeling and thought, the natural result 
must be a state of mind very uncongenial with the 
gospel. Views habitually presented to the mind in its 
most susceptible periods, and during the prolonged 
course of its improvements, in the varied forms and 
lights of sublimity and beauty, with every fascination 
of the taste, ingenuity, and eloquence, which it has 
admired still more each year as its faculties have ex- 
panded, will have become the settled order of its ideas. 
And it will feel the same complacency in this intellectual 
order, that we feel, as inhabitants of the material world, 
in the great arrangement of nature, in the green bloom- 
ing earth, and the splendid hemisphere of heaven. 



LETTER VIII. 

It will be proper to specify, somewhat more dis- 
tinctly, several of the particulars in which I consider 
the majority of our fine writers as at variance with 
the tenour of the christian revelation, and therefore 

u2 



292 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

beguiling their readers into a complacency in an order 
of sentiments that sometimes virtually, and sometimes 
directly, disowns it. 

One thing extremely obvious to remark is, that the 
good man, the man of virtue, who is necessarily coming 
often in view in the volumes of these writers, is not a 
christian. His character could have been formed though 
the christian revelation had never been opened on the 
earth, or though the New Testament had perished ages 
since ; and it might have been a fine spectacle, but of 
no striking peculiarity. It has no such complexion and 
aspect as would have appeared foreign and unaccount- 
able in the absence of the christian truth, and have 
excited wonder what it should bear relation to, and on 
what model, or in what school, such a conformation of 
principles and feelings could have taken its consistence. 
Let it only be said, that this man of virtue had been 
conversant whole years with such oracles and examples 
as Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Antoninus, and Seneca, se- 
lecting what in any of them appeared the wisest or best, 
and all would be explained ; there would be nothing to 
suggest the question, " But if so, with whom has he 
conversed since, to lose so strangely the proper cha- 
racter of his school, under the broad impression of 
some other mightier influence ?" 

The good man of our polite literature never talks 
with affectionate devotion of Christ, as the great High 
Priest of his profession, as the exalted friend and lord, 
whose injunctions are the laws of his virtues, whose 
work and sacrifice are the basis of his hopes, whose 
doctrines guide and awe his reasonings, and whose ex- 
ample is the pattern which he is earnestly aspiring to 
resemble. The last intellectual and moral designations 
in the world by which it would occur to you to describe 
him, would be those by which the apostles so much 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 293 

exulted to be recognised, a disciple, and a servant, of 
Jesus Christ ; nor could you imagine him as at all 
gratified by being so described. You do not hear him 
express, that he accounts the habitual remembrance d 
Christ essential to the nature of that excellence which 
he is cultivating. He rather seems, with the utmost 
coolness of choice, adopting virtue as according with 
the dignity of a rational agent, than to be in the least 
degree impelled to the high attainment by any relations 
with the Saviour of the world. 

If you suppose a person of such character to have 
fallen into the company of St. Paul, you can easily 
imagine the total want of congeniality. Though both 
avowedly devoted to truth, to virtue, and perhaps to 
religion, the difference in the cast of their sentiments 
would have been as great as that between the physical 
constitution and habitudes of a native of the country 
at the equator, and those of one from the arctic regions. 
Would not that determination of the apostle's mind, by 
which there was a continual intervention of ideas con- 
cerning one great object, in all subjects, places, and 
times, have appeared to this man of virtue and wisdom 
inconceivably mystical ? In what manner would he have 
listened to the emphatical expressions respecting the 
love of Christ constraining us, living not to ourselves, 
but to him that died for us and rose again, counting all 
things but loss for the knowledge of Christ, being ardent 
to win Christ and be found in him, and trusting that 
Christ should be magnified in our body, whether by 
life or by death ? Perhaps St. Paul's energy of tempera- 
ment, evidently combined with a vigorous intellect, 
might have awed him into silence. But amidst that 
silence, he must have decided, in order to defend his 
self-complacency, that the apostle's mind had fallen, 
notwithstanding its strength, under the dominion of an 



294? ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

irrational association ; for he would have been conscious 
that no such ideas had ever kindled his affections, and 
that no such affections had ever animated his actions ; 
and yet he was indubitably a good man, according to a 
generally approved standard, and could, in another style, 
be as eloquent for goodness as St. Paul himself. He 
would therefore have assured himself, either that it was 
not necessary to be a christian, or that this order of 
feelings was not necessary to that character. But if 
the apostle's sagacity had detected the cause of this 
reserve, and the nature of his associate's reflections, he 
would most certainly have declared to him with em- 
phasis that both these things were necessary — or that 
he had been deceived by inspiration ; and he would have 
parted from this self- complacent man with admonition 
and compassion. Would St. Paul have been wrong ? 
But if he would have been right, what becomes of those 
authors, whose works, whether from neglect or design, 
tend to satisfy their readers of the perfection of a form 
of character which he would have pronounced essen- 
tially unsound ? 

Again, moral writings are instructions on the subject 
of happiness. Now the doctrine of this subject is 
declared in the evangelical testimony: it had been 
strange indeed if it had not, when the happiness o 
man was expressly the object of the communication. 
And what, according to this communication, are the 
essential requisites to that condition of the mind 
without which no man ought to be called happy; 
without which ignorance or insensibility alone can be 
content, and folly alone can be cheerful ? A simple 
reader of the christian scriptures will reply that they 
are — a change of heart, called conversion, the assur- 
ance of the pardon of sin through Jesus Christ, a 
habit of devotion approaching so near to intercourse 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION 295 

with the Supreme Object of devotion that revelation 
has called it " communion with God," a process, named 
sanctification, of improvement in all internal and ex- 
ternal virtue, a confidence in the divine Providence 
that all things shall work together for good, and a 
conscious preparation for another life, including a firm 
hope of eternal felicity. And what else can he reply ? 
Did the lamp of heaven ever shine more clearly since 
omnipotence lighted it, than these ideas display them- 
selves through the christian revelation ? Is this then 
absolutely and exclusively the true account of hap- 
piness? It is not that which our accomplished writers 
in general have chosen to sanction. Your recollection 
will tell you that they have most certainly presumed to 
avow, or to insinuate, a doctrine of happiness which 
implies much of the christian doctrine to be a needless 
intruder on our speculations, or an imposition on our 
belief; and I wonder that this grave fact should so 
little have alarmed the christian students of elegant 
literature. The wide difference between the dictates 
of the two authorities is too evident to be overlooked ; 
for the writers in question have very rarely, amidst an 
immense assemblage of sentiments concerning happi- 
ness, made any reference to what the inspired teachers 
so explicitly declare to be its constituent and vital 
principles. How many times you might read the sun 
or the moon to its repose, before you would find an 
assertion or a recognition, for instance, of a change of 
the mind being requisite to happiness, in any terms 
commensurate with the significance which this article 
seems to bear, in all the varied propositions and notices 
respecting it in the New Testament ! Some of these 
writers appear hardly to have admitted or to have 
recollected even the maxim, that happiness must essen- 
tially consist in something so fixed in the mind itself, 



296 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

as to be substantially independent of worldly condition 
for their most animated representations of it are merely 
descriptions of fortunate combinations of external cir- 
cumstances, and of the feelings so immediately de- 
pending on them, that they will expire the moment 
that these combinations are broken up. The greater 
number, however, have fully admitted so plain a truth, 
and have given their illustrations of the doctrine of 
happiness accordingly. And what appears in these 
illustrations as the brightest image of happiness ? It 
is, probably, that of a man feeling an elevated com- 
placency in his own excellence, a proud consciousness 
of rectitude ; privileged with freedom of thought, and 
extended views, cleared from the mists of prejudice 
and superstition; displaying the generosity of his 
nature in the exercise of beneficence, without feeling, 
however, any grateful incitement from remembrance 
of the transcendent generosity of the Son of Man ; 
maintaining, in respect to the events and bustle of the 
surrounding scene, a dignified indifference, which can 
let the world go its own way, undisturbed by its dis- 
ordered course ; temperately enjoying whatever good 
grows on his portion of the field of life, and living in 
a cool resignation to fate, without any strong expressions 
of a specific hope, or even solicitude, with regard to 
the termination of life and to all futurity. Now, not- 
withstanding a partial coincidence of this description 
with the christian theory of happiness,* it is evident 
that on the whole the two modes are so different that 
no man can realize them both. The consequence is 

* No one can be so absurd as to represent the notions which 
pervade the works of polite literature as totally, and at all points, 
opposite to the principles of Christianity ; what I am asserting is, 
that in some important points they are substantially and essentially 
different, and that in others they disown the christian modification. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 297 

clear ; the natural effect of incompetent and fallacious 
schemes, prepossessing the mind by every grace and 
force of genius, will be an aversion to the christian 
scheme ; which will be seen to place happiness in 
elements and relations much less flattering to what will 
be called a noble pride ; to make it consist in some- 
thing of which it were a vain presumption for the man 
to fancy that himself can be the sovereign creator. 

It is, again, a prominent characteristic of the christian 
revelation, that having declared this life to be but the 
introduction to another, it systematically preserves the 
recollection of this great truth through every repre- 
sentation of every subject ; so that the reader is not 
allowed to contemplate any of the interests of life in 
a view which detaches them from the grand object and 
conditions of life itself. An apostle could not address 
his friends on the most common concerns, for the length 
of a page, without the final references. *He is like a 
person whose eye, while he is conversing with you 
about an object, or a succession of objects, immediately 
near, should glance every moment toward some great 
spectacle appearing on the distant horizon. He seems 
to talk to his friends in somewhat of that manner of 
expression with which you can imagine that Elijah 
spoke, if he remarked to his companion any circum- 
stance in the journey from Bethel to Jericho, and from 
Jericho to the Jordan ; a manner betraying the sublime 
anticipation which was pressing on his thoughts. The 
correct consequence of conversing with our Lord and 
his apostles would be, that the thought of immortality 
should become almost as habitually present and fami 
liarized to the mind as the countenance of a domestic 
friend; that it should be the grand test of the value of 
all pursuits, friendships, and speculations ; and that it 
should mingle a certain nobleness with every thing 



298 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

which it permitted to occupy our time. Now, how far 
will the discipline of modern polite literature coincide? 

I should be pleased to hear a student of that literature 
seriously profess that he is often and impressively re- 
minded of futurity; and to have it shown that ideas 
relating to this great subject are presented in sufficient 
number, and in a proper manner, to produce an effect 
which should form a respectable proportion of the 
whole effect produced by these authors on susceptible 
minds. But there is no ground for expecting this 
satisfaction. 

It is true that the idea of immortality is so exceed- 
ingly grand, that many writers of genius who have felt 
but little genuine interest in religion, have been led by 
their perception of what is sublime to introduce an 
allusion which is one of the most powerful means of 
elevating the imagination : and, in point of energy 
and splendour, their language has been worthy of the 
subject. In these instances, however, it is seldom 
found that the idea is presented in that light which, 
while displaying it prominent in its individual grandeur, 
shows also its extensive necessary connexion with other 
ideas: it appears somewhat like a majestic tower, which 
a traveller in some countries may find standing in a 
solitary scene, no longer surrounded by the great as- 
semblage of buildings, the ample city, of which it was 
raised to be the centre, the strength, and the ornament. 
Immortality has been had recourse to in one page of 
an ingenious work as a single topic of sublimity, in the 
same manner as a magnificent phenomenon, or a bril- 
liant achievement, has been described in another. The 
authors object might rather seem to have been to 
supply an occasional gratification to taste, than to 
reduce the mind and all its feelings under the dominion 
of a grand practical principle. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 299 

It is true also, that a graver class of fine writers, who 
have expressed considerable respect for religion and 
for Christianity, and who, though not writing syste- 
matically on morals, have inculcated high moral prin- 
ciples, have made references to a future state as the 
hope and sanction of virtue. But these references are 
made less frequently, and with less enforcement and 
emphasis, than the connexion between our present 
conduct and a future life must be acknowledged to 
claim. The manner in which they are made seems to 
betray either a deficiency of interest in the great 
subject, or a pusillanimous anxiety not to offend those 
readers who would think it too directly religious. It 
is sometimes adverted to as if rather from a compelling 
sense, that if there is a future state, moral speculation 
must be defective, even to a degree of absurdity, 
without some allusions to it, than from feeling a pro- 
found delight in the contemplation. When the idea 
of another life is introduced to aggravate the force of 
moral principles, and the authority of conscience, it is 
done so as to appear like a somewhat reluctant ac- 
knowledgment of the deficiency of inferior sanctions. 
The consideration comes and vanishes in transient light, 
after the writer has eloquently expatiated on every 
circumstance by which the present life can supply 
motives to goodness. In some instances, a watchful 
reader will also perceive what appears too much like 
care to divest the idea, when it must be introduced, of 
all direct references to that sacred Person who first 
completely opened the prospect of immortality, or to 
some of those other doctrines which he taught in im- 
mediate connexion with this great truth. There seems 
reason to suspect the writer of being pleased that, though 
it is indeed to the gospel alone that we owe the positive 
assurance of immortality, yet it was a subject so much 



300 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

in the conjectures and speculation of the heathen 
sages, that he may mention it without therefore so 
expressly recognising the gospel, as he must in the case 
of introducing some truth of which not only the evi- 
dence, but even the first explicit conception, was com- 
municated by that dispensation. 

Taking this defective kind of acknowledgment of a 
future state, together with that entire oblivion of the 
subject which prevails through an ample portion of 
elegant literature, I think there is no hazard in saying, 
that a reader who is satisfied without any other in- 
structions, will learn almost every lesson sooner than 
the necessity of habitually living for eternity. Many 
of these writers seem to take as much care to guard 
against the inroad of ideas from that solemn quarter, 
as the inhabitants of Holland do against the irruption of 
the sea; and their writings do really form a kind of 
moral dyke against the invasion from the other world. 
They do not instruct a man to act, to enjoy, and to 
suffer, as a being that may by to-morrow have finally 
abandoned this orb : every thing is done to beguile the 
feeling of his being a " stranger and a pilgrim on the 
earth." The relation which our nature bears to the 
circumstances of the present state, and which indi- 
viduals bear to one another, is mainly the ground on 
which their considerations of duty proceed and conclude. 
And their schemes of happiness, though formed for 
beings at once immortal and departing, include little 
which avowedly relates to that world to which they are 
removing, nor reach beyond the period at which they 
will properly but begin to live. They endeavour to 
raise the groves of an earthly paradise, to shade 
from sight that vista which opens to the distance of 
eternity. 

Another article in which the an ti- christian tendency 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 301 

of a great part of our productions of taste and genius 
is apparent, is, the kind of consolation administered to 
distress, old age, and death. Things of a mournful 
kind make so large a portion of the lot of humanity, 
that it is impossible for writers who take human life and 
feelings for their subject to avoid, (nor indeed have 
they endeavoured to avoid,) contemplating man in those 
conditions in which he needs every benignant aid to 
save him from despair. And here, if any where, we may 
justly require an absolute coincidence of all moral in- 
structions with the religion of Christ : since consolation 
is eminently its distinction and its design ; since a being 
in distress has peculiarly a right not to be trifled with 
by the application of unadapted expedients; and since 
insufficient consolations are but to mock it, and decep- 
tive ones are to betray. It should then be clearly 
ascertained by the moralist, and never forgotten, what 
are the consolations provided by this religion, and 
under what condition they are offered. 

Christianity offers even to the irreligious, who relent 
amidst their sufferings, the alleviation springing from 
inestimable promises made to penitence : any other 
system, which should attempt to console them, simply as 
suffering, and without any reference to the moral and 
religious state of their minds, would be mischievous, 
if it were not inefficacious. What are the principal 
sources of consolation to the pious, is immediately ap- 
parent. The subjects of adversity and sorrow are 
assured that God exercises his paternal wisdom and 
kindness in afflicting his children : that this necessary 
discipline is to refine and exalt them by making them 
" partakers of his holiness ;" that he mercifully regards 
their weakness and pains, and will not let them suffer 
beyond what they shall be able to bear ; that their 
great Leader has suffered for them more than they can 



S02 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

suffer, and compassionately sympathizes with them still ; 
that this short life was far less designed to confer a 
present happiness, than to mature them to a fitness for 
being happy for ever ; and that patient constancy shall 
receive a resplendent crown. An aged christian is 
soothed by the assurance that his Almighty Friend will 
not despise the enfeebled exertions, nor desert the op- 
pressed and fainting weakness, of the last stage of his 
servant's life. When advancing into the shade of death 
itself, he is animated by the faith that the great sacrifice 
has taken the malignity of death away ; and that the 
divine presence will attend the dark steps of this last 
and lonely enterprise, and shew the dying traveller and 
combatant that even this melancholy gloom is to him 
the utmost limit of the dominion of evil, the very con- 
fine of paradise, the immediate access to the region of 
eternal life. 

Now, in the greater number of the works under 
review, what are the modes of consolation which sensi- 
bility, reason, and eloquence, have most generally ex- 
erted themselves to apply to the mournful circumstances 
of life, and to its close ? You will readily recollect such 
as these : a man is suffering — well, it is the common 
destiny, every one suffers sometimes, and some much 
more than he ; it is well it is no worse. If he is 
unhappy now, he has been happy, and he could not 
expect to be so invariably. It were folly to complain 
that his nature was constituted capable of suffering, or 
placed in a world where it is exposed to the infliction. 
If it were not capable of pain, it would not of pleasure. 
Would he be willing to lose his being, to escape these 
ills ? Or would he consent, if such a thing were possible, 
to be any person else ? — The sympathy of each kind 
relation and friend will not be wanting. His condition 
may probably change for the better ; there is hope in 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 303 

every situation ; and meanwhile, it is an opportunity for 
displaying manly fortitude. A strong mind can proudly 
triumph over the oppression of pain, the vexations of 
disappointment, and the tyranny of fortune. If the 
cause of distress is some irreparable deprivation, it will 
be softened by the lenient hand of time.* 

The lingering months of an aged man are soothed 
almost, it is pretended, into cheerfulness, by the re- 
spectful attention of his neighbours; by the worldly 
prosperity and dutiful regard of the family he has 
brought up ; by the innocent gaiety and amusing activity 
of their children ; and by the consideration of his fair 
character in society. If he is a man of thought, he 
has the added advantage of some philosophical consi- 
derations ; the cares and passions of his former life are 
calmed into a wise tranquillity ; he thinks he has had 
a competent share of life ; it is as proper and necessary 
for mankind to have their " exits," as their " entrances;" 
and his business will now be to make a " well-graced " 
retreat from the stage, like a man that has properly acted 
his part, and may retire with applause. 

As to the means of sustaining the spirit in death, the 
general voice of these authors asserts the chief and only 
all-sufficient one to be the recollection of a well-spent 
life. Some minor repellents of fear are added ; as for 
instance, that death is in fact a far less tremendous 
thing than that dire form of it by which imagination and 
superstition are haunted ; that the sufferings in death 

• Can it be necessary to notice here again, that every system of 
moral sentiments must inevitably contain some principles not dis- 
claimed by Christianity ; with whose dictates various particulars in 
this assemblage of consolations are not inconsistent if held in a 
subordinate rank? But the enumeration taken altogether, and 
exclusively of the grand christian principles, forms a scheme of 
consolation essentially different from that so beneficently displayed 
in the religion of Christ. 



304 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

are less than men often endure in the course of life ; 
that it is only like one of those transformations with 
which the world of nature abounds ; and that it is easy 
to conceive, and reasonable to expect, a more com- 
modious vehicle and habitation. It would seem almost 
unavoidable to glance a thought toward what revelation 
has signified to us of "the house not made with hands," 
of the " better country, that is, the heavenly.'' But 
the greater number of the writers of taste advert to the 
scene beyond this world with apparent reluctance, unless 
it can be done, on the one hand, in the manner of pure 
philosophical conjecture, or on the other, under the 
form of images, bearing some analogy to the visions of 
classical poetry.* 

The arguments for resignation to death are not so 
much drawn from future scenes, as from a consideration 
of the evils of the present life ; the necessity of yielding 
to a general and irreversible law ; the dignity of sub- 
mitting with that calmness which conscious virtue is 
entitled to feel ; and the improbability (as these writers 
sometimes intimate) that any formidable evils are to be 
apprehended after death, except by a few of the very 
worst of the human race. Those arguments are in general 
rather aimed to quiet fear than to animate hope. The 
pleaders of them seem more concerned to convey the 
dying man in peace and silence out of the world, than 
to conduct him to the celestial felicity. Let us but see 

* I am very far from disliking philosophical speculation, or daring 
flights of fancy, on this high subject. On the contrary, it appears 
to me strange that any one firmly holding the belief of a life to come, 
should not have both the intellectual faculty and the imagination 
excited to the utmost effort in the trial, however unavailing, to give 
some outlines of definite form to the unseen realities. What I 
mean to censure in the mode of referring to another life, is, the care 
to avoid any direct resemblance or recognition of the ideas which 
the New Testament has given to guide, in some small, very small 
degree, our conjectures. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 305 

him embarked on his unknown voyage in fair weather, 
and we are not accountable for what he may meet, or 
whither he may be carried, when he is gone out of sight. 
They seldom present a lively view of the distant hap- 
piness, especially in any of those images in which the 
christian revelation has intimated its nature. In which 
of these books, and by which of the real or fictitious 
characters whose last hours and thoughts they some- 
times display, will you find, in terms or in spirit, the 
apostolic sentiments adopted, " To depart and be with 
Christ is far better;'' "Willing rather to be absent 
from the body, and present with the Lord ? " The very 
existence of that sacred testimony which has given the 
only genuine consolations in death, and the only just 
conceptions of what is beyond it, seems to be scarcely 
recollected; while the ingenious moralists are searching 
the exhausted common places of the stoic philosophy, 
or citing the treacherous maxims of a religion perverted 
to accordance with the corrupt wishes of mankind, or 
even recollecting the lively sayings of the few whose 
wit has expired only in the same moment with life, to 
fortify the pensive spirit for its last removal. " Is it not 
because there is not a God in Israel, that ye have sent 
to inquire of Baalzebub the God of Ekron?" 

Another order of sentiments concerning death, of a 
character too bold to be called consolations, has been 
represented as animating one class of human beings. 
In remarking on Lucan, I noticed that desire of death 
which has appeared in the expressions of great minds, 
sometimes while merely indulging solemn reflections 
when no danger or calamity immediately threatened, 
but often in the conscious approach towards a fatal cata- 
strophe. Many writers of later times have exerted their 
whole strength, and have even excelled themselves, in re- 
presenting the high sentiments in which this dssire has 

x 



SOS ON THE AVERSION OF MEN Oif TASTE 

displayed itself; genius has found its very -gold mine in 
this field. If this grandeur of sentiment had been of 
the genuine spirit to animate piety while it exalts the 
passions, some of the poets would have ranked among 
our greatest benefactors. Powerful genius, aiding to 
inspire a christian triumph in the prospect of death, 
might be revered as a prophet, might be almost loved 
as a benignant angel. Few men's emotions can have 
approached nearer to enthusiasm than mine, in reading 
the sentiments made to be uttered by sages and reflective 
heroes in this prospect. I have felt these passages as 
the last and mightiest of the enchantments of poetry, of 
power to inspire for a little while a contempt of all 
ordinary interests, of the world which we inhabit, and 
of life itself. While the enthusiast is elated with such 
an emotion, nothing may appear so captivating as some 
noble occasion of dying ; such an occasion as that 
when Socrates died for virtue ; or that when Brutus at 
Philippi fell with falling liberty.* Poetry has delighted 
to display personages of this high order, in the same 
fatal predicament ; and the situation of such men has 
appeared inexpressibly enviable, by means of those 
sublime sentiments by which they illuminated the 
gloom of death. The reader has loved to surround 
himself in imagination with that gloom, for the sake of 
irradiating it with that sublimity. All other greatness 
has been for a while eclipsed by the greatness of thought 
displayed by these contemplative and magnanimous 

* Poetry will not easily exceed many of the expressions which 
mere history has recorded. I should little admire the capability of 
feeling, or greatly admire the christian temper, of the man who 
could without emotion read, for instance, the short observations of 
Brutus to his friend, (in contemplation even of a self-inflicted death,) 
on the eve of the battle which extinguished all hope of freedom ; 
■" We shall either be victorious, or pass away beyond the power of 
those that are so. We shall deliver our country by victory, or 
ourselves by death " 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 307 

spirits, though untaught by religion, when advancing to 
meet their fate. 

But the christian faith recalls the mind from this en- 
chantment, to recollect that the christian spirit in dying 
can be the only right and noble one, and to consider 
whether these examples be not exceedingly different. 
Have not the most enlightened and devout christians, 
whether they have languished in their chambers, or 
passed through the fire of martyrdom, manifested their 
elevation of mind in another strain of eloquence ? The 
examples of greatness in death, which poetry has ex- 
hibited, generally want all those sentiments respecting 
the pardon of sin, and a Mediator who has accomplished 
and confers the deliverance, and often the explicit idea 
of meeting the Judge, with which a christian contem- 
plates his approaching end. Their expressions of intre- 
pidity and exultation have no analogy with the language 
of an incomparable saint and hero, " O death, where is 
thy sting ? O grave, where is thy victory ? Thanks 
be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord 
Jesus Christ." The kind of self-authorized confidence 
of taking possession of some other state of being, as 
monarchs would talk of a distant part of their empire 
which they were going to enter ; the proud apostrophes 
+o the immortals, to prepare for the great and rival 
spirit that is coming ; their manner of consigning to its 
fate a good but falling cause, which will sink when they 
are gone, there not being virtue enough on earth to 
support, or in heaven to vindicate it ; their welcoming 
the approach of death in an exultation of lofty and 
bitter scorn of a hated world and a despicable race — 
are not the humility, nor the benevolence, nor the reve- 
rential submission to the Supreme Governor, with which 
it is in the proper character of a christian to die. If 
a christian will partly unite with these high spirits in 

x2 



308 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

being weary of a world of dust and trifles, in defying 
the pains of death, in panting for an unbounded liberty, 
it will be at the same time with a most solemn com- 
mitment of himself to the divine mercy, which they 
forget, or were never instructed, to implore. And as 
to the vision of the other world, you will observe a 
great difference between the language of sublime poetry 
and that of revelation, in respect to the nature of the 
sentiments and triumphs of that world, and still more 
perhaps in respect to the associates with whom the 
departing spirit expects soon to mingle. The dying 
magnanimity of poetry anticipates high converse with 
the souls of heroes, and patriots, and perhaps philo- 
sophers ; a christian feels himself going, (I may accom- 
modate the passage,) to "an innumerable company of 
angels, to the general assembly and church of the first- 
born, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just 
men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the 
new covenant." 

In defence of those who have thus given attractions 
to the image of death by means foreign and opposite 
to the evangelical principles, it may be said, that many 
of the personages whom their scenes exhibit in the 
contemplation of death, or in the approach to it, were 
necessarily, from the age or country in which they lived 
or are feigned to have lived, unacquainted with Chris- 
tianity ; and that therefore it would have been absurd 
to represent them as animated by christian sentiments. 
Certainly. But then I ask, on what ground men of 
genius will justify themselves for choosing, with a view 
to the improvement of the heart, as they will profess, 
examples of which they cannot preserve the consis- 
tency, without making them pernicious ? Where is the 
conscience of that man, who is anxiously careful that 
every sentiment expressed by the historical or fictitious 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 309 

personage, in the fatal season, should be harmonious 
with every principle of the character, — but feels not 
the smallest concern about the consistency of selecting 
or creating the character itself, with his conviction of 
the absolute authority of the religion of Christ ? In 
glancing forward, he knows that his favourite is to die, 
and that he cannot die as a christian ; yet he is to 
depart in a splendour of moral dignity. Would it not 
therefore be a dictate of conscience to warn his readers, 
that he expects to display the exit with a commanding 
sublimity, of which the natural effect is to be, a com- 
placency, or an elation, in the idea of such a death as 
a christian cannot die. But how would he feel while 
giving such a warning ? Might it not be said to him, 
And are you then willing to die otherwise than as a 
christian ? If you are, you virtually pronounce Chris- 
tianity an imposture, and, to be consistent, should avow 
the rejection. If you are not, how can you endeavour 
to seduce your readers into an enthusiastic admiration 
of such a death as you wish may now be yours ? How 
can you endeavour to infect your reader with sentiments 
which you could not hear him utter in his last hours 
without alarm for the state of his mind ? Is it necessary 
to the pathos and sublimity of poetry, to introduce 
characters which cannot be justly represented without 
falsifying our view of the most serious of all subjects ? 
If this be necessary, it would be better that poetry with 
all its charms were exploded, than that the revelation 
of God should be frustrated in the great object and 
demand of fixing its own ideas of death, clearly and 
alone, in the minds of beings whose manner of preparing 
for it is of infinite consequence. But there is no such 
dilemma ; since many examples could be found, and 
an unlimited number may with rational probability be 
imagined, of christian greatness in death. Are not then 



310 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

the preference of examples adverse to Christianity, and 
that temper of the poet's mind which is in such full 
sympathy with them, empowering him to personate them 
with such entireness and animation, and to express for 
them all the appropriate feelings, a worse kind of in- 
fidelity, as it is far more injurious, than that of the cold 
dealer in cavils and quibbles against the gospel ? What 
is the christian belief of that poet worth, who would 
not on reflection feel self-reproach for the affecting 
scene, which may for a while have betrayed some of 
his readers to regard it as a more dignified thing to 
depart in the character of Socrates or Cato, than of 
St. John or a christian martyr ? What would have been 
thought of the pupil of an apostle, who, after hearing 
his master describe the spirit of a christian's departure 
from the world, in language which he believed to be 
of conclusive authority, and which asserted or clearly 
implied that this alone was greatness in death, should 
have taken the first occasion to expatiate with enthu- 
siasm on the closing scene of a philosopher, or on the 
exit of a stern hero, that, acknowledging within the 
visible creation no object for either confidence or fear, 
departed with the aspect of a being who should be 
going to summon his gods to judgment for the mis- 
fortunes of his life ? And how will these careless men 
of genius give their account to the Judge of the world, 
for having virtually taught many aspiring minds that, 
notwithstanding his first coming was to conquer for 
man the king of terrors, there needs no recollection of 
him, in order to look toward death with noble defiance 
or sublime desire ? 

Some of their dying personages are so consciously 
uninformed of the realities of the invisible state, that 
the majestic sentiments which they disclose on the verge 
of life, can only throw a faint glimmering on unfathom- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 311 

able darkness ; but some anticipate the other world, as 
I have already observed, in very defined images. I 
recollect one of them, after some just reflections on the 
vanity and wretchedness of life, thus expressing his 
complacency in view of the great deliverer : 

" Death joins us to the great majority; 
'Tis to be born to Platos and to Caesars ; 
'Tis to be great for ever. 
'Tis pleasure, 'tis ambition then, to die." 

Another, an illustrious female, in a tragedy which I 
lately read, welcomes death with the following senti- 
ments : 

" Oh 'tis wondrous well ! 

Ye gods of death, that rule the Stygian gloom ! 
Ye who have greatly died, I come ! I come ! 
The hand of Rome can never touch me more ; 
Hail ! perfect freedom, hail !" 

" My free spirit should ere now have join'd 
That great assembly, those devoted shades, 
Who scorn'd to live till liberty was lost ! 
But, ere their country fell, abhorr'd the light." 

" Shift not thy colour at the sound of death ; 
It is to me perfection, glory, triumph. 
Nay, fondly would I choose it, though persuaded 
It were a long dark night without a morning ; 
To bondage far prefer it, since it is 
Deliverance from a world where Romans rule/' 

" Then let us spread 

A bold exalted wing, and the last voice we hear, 
Be that of wonder and applause." 

" And is the sacred moment then so near ? 
The moment when yon sun, those heavens, this earth, 
Hateful to me, polluted by the Romans, 
And all the busy slavish race of men, 
Shall sink at once, and straight another state 
Rise on a sudden round ? 
Oh to be there P'* 

* This is not perhaps one of the best specimens : it is the last that 
has come under my notice. I am certain of having read many, but 
have not recollection enough to know where to find them 



312 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

You will recollect to have read many equally im- 
proper to engage a christian's full sympathy, and 
therefore, convicting the poetic genius which produced 
them of treachery to the true faith, in such efforts to 
seduce our feelings. It is a pernicious circumstance in 
passages of this strain, that the special thoughts and 
images which are alien from the spirit of Christianity, 
are implicated with those general sentiments of antici- 
pation, those emotions aspiring to greatness and felicity 
in indefinite terms, which a dying christian may ener- 
getically express ; so that through the animated sym- 
pathy with the general, and as it were elementary 
sentiments, the reader's mind is beguiled into com- 
placency in the more special ones of an antichristian 
spirit. 

Sometimes even very bad men are made to display 
such dignity in death, as at once to impart an attraction 
to their false sentiments, and to mitigate the horrcr of 
their crimes. I recollect the interest with which I read, 
many years since, in Dr. Young's Busiris, the proud 
magnanimous speech at the end of which the tyrant 
dies : these are some of the lines : 

" I thank these wounds, these raging pains, which promise 
An interview with equals soon elsewhere. 
Great Jove, I come !" 

Even the detestable Zanga, in the prospect of death, 
while assured by his conscience that i( to receive him 
hell blows all her fires," rises to a certain imposing 
greatness, by heroic courage tempered to a kind of 
moral dignity, through the relenting of revenge and the 
ingenuous manifestation of sentiments of justice. To 
create an occasion of thus compelling us to do homage 
to the dying magnanimity of wicked men, is unfaith- 
fulness to the religion which condemns such magna- 
nimity as madness. It is no justification to say that 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 313 

such instances have been known, and therefore such re- 
presentations are only vividly reflected images of reality; 
for if the laws of criticism do not enjoin, in works of 
genius, a careful adaptation of all examples and senti- 
ments to the purest moral purpose, as a far higher duty 
than the study of resemblance to the actual world, the 
laws of piety most certainly do. Let the men who have 
so much literary conscience about this verisimilitude, 
content themselves with the office of mere historians, 
and then they may relate without guilt, provided the 
relation be simple and unvarnished, all the facts, and 
speeches of depraved greatness within the memory of 
the world. But when they choose the higher office of 
inventing and combining, they are accountable for the 
consequences. They create a new person, and, in 
sending him into society, they can choose whether his 
example shall tend to improve or to pervert the minds 
that will be compelled to admire him. 

It is an immense transition from such instances as 
those I have been remarking on, to Rousseau's cele- 
brated description of the death of his Eloisa, which 
would have been much more properly noticed in an 
earlier page. It is long since I read that scene, one of 
the most striking specimens probably of original con- 
ception and interesting sentiment that ever appeared ; 
but though the representation is so extended as to in- 
clude every thing which the author thought needful to 
make it perfect, there is no explicit reference to the 
peculiarly evangelical causes of complacency in death. 
Yet the representation is so admirable, that the serious 
reader is tempted to suspect even his own mind of fana- 
ticism, while he is expressing to his friends the wish 
that they, and that himself, may be animated, in the 
last day of life, by a class of ideas which that eloquent 
writer would have been ashamed to introduce. 



314 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 



LETTER IX. 

Does it not appear to you, my dear friend, that an 
approving reader of the generality of our ingenious 
authors will acquire an opinion of the moral condition 
of our species very different from that which is dictated 
by the divine declarations ? The Governor of all intel- 
ligent creatures has spoken of this nation or -family of 
them, as exceedingly remote from conformity to that 
standard of perfection which alone can ever be his rule 
of judgment. And this is pronounced not only of vicious 
individuals, who are readily given up to condemnation 
by those who entertain the most partial or the proudest 
estimate of human nature, but of the constitutional 
quality of that nature itself. The moral part of the 
constitution of man is represented as placing him im- 
mensely below that rank of dignity and happiness to 
which, by his intellectual powers, and his privilege 01 
being immortal, he would otherwise have seemed adapted 
to belong. The descriptions of the human condition 
are such as if the nature had, by a dreadful convulsion, 
been separated off at each side from a pure and happy 
system of the creation, and had fallen down an im- 
measurable depth, into depravation and misery. In this 
state man is represented as loving, and therefore practi- 
cally choosing, the evils which subject him to the con- 
demnation of God ; and it is affirmed that no expedient, 
but that very extraordinary one which Christianity has 
revealed, can change this condition, and avert this con- 
demnation with its formidable consequences. 

Every attempt to explain the wisdom and the exact 
ultimate intention of the Supreme Being, in constituting 
a nature subject in so fatal a degree to moral evil, will 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 315 

fail. But even if a new revelation were given to turn this 
dark inquiry into noonday, it would make no difference 
in the actual state of things. An extension of knowledge 
could not reverse the fact, that the human nature has dis- 
played, through every age, the most aggravated proofs 
of being in a deplorable and hateful condition, whatever 
were the reasons for giving a moral agent a constitution 
which it was foreseen would soon be found in this condi- 
tion. Perhaps, if there were a mind expanded to a com- 
prehension so far beyond all other created intelligences, 
that it could survey the general order of a great portion 
of the universe, and look into distant ages, it might 
understand in what manner the melancholy fact could 
operate to the perfection of the vast system ; and 
according to what principles, and in reference to what 
ends, all that has taken place within the empire of the 
Eternal Monarch is right. But in this contemplation 
of the whole, it would also take account of the separate 
condition of each part ; it would perceive that this 
human world, whatever are its relations to the universe, 
has its own distinct economy of interests, and stands in 
its own relation and accountableness to the righteous 
Governor ; and that, regarded in this exclusive view, it 
is an awful spectacle. Now, to this exclusive sphere of 
our own condition and interests revelation confines our 
attention ; and pours contempt, though not more than 
experience pours, on all presumption to reason on those 
grand unknown principles according to which the 
Almighty disposes the universe ; all our estimates 
therefore of the state and relations of man must take 
the subject on this insulated ground. Considering man 
in this view, the sacred oracles have represented him as 
a more melancholy object than Nineveh or Babylon 
in ruins; and an infinite aggregate of obvious facts 
confirms the doctrine. This doctrine then is absolute 



316 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

authority in our speculations on human nature. But 
to this authority the writers in question seem to pay, 
and to teach their readers to pay, but little respect* 
And unless those readers are pre-occupied by the grave 
convictions of religious truth, rendered still more grave 
by painful reflection on themselves, and by observation 
on mankind; or unless they are capable of enjoying a 
malicious or misanthropic pleasure, like Mandeville and 
Swift, in detecting and exposing the degradation of our 
nature, it is not wonderful that they should be prompt 
to entertain the sentiments which insinuate a much 
more flattering estimate. Our elegant and amusing 
moralists no doubt copiously describe and censure the 
follies and vices of mankind; but many of these, they 
maintain, are accidental to the human character, rather 
than a disclosure of intrinsic qualities. Others do 
indeed spring radically from the nature ; but they are 
only the wild weeds of a virtuous soil. Man is still a 
very dignified and noble being, with strong dispositions 
to all excellence, holding a proud eminence in the 
ranks of existence, and (if such a Being is adverted to) 
high in the favour of his Creator. The measure of virtue 
in the world vastly exceeds that of depravity ; we should 
not indulge a fanatical rigour in our judgments of man- 
kind ; nor be always reverting to an ideal perfection ; 
nor accustom ourselves to contemplate the Almighty 
always in the dark majesty of justice. — None of their 
speculations seem to acknowledge the gloomy fact 
which the New Testament so often asserts or implies, 
that all men are u by nature children of wrath." 

It is quite of course that among sentiments of this 
order, the idea of the redemption by Jesus Christ (if 
any allusion to it should occur,) can but appear with 
equivocal import, and " shorn of the beams " which 
constitute the peculiar light of his own revelation. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 31** 

While man is not considered as lost, the mind cannor 
do justice to the expedient, or to " the only name under 
heaven," by which he can be redeemed. Accordingly 
the gift of Jesus Christ does not appear to be habitually 
recollected as the most illustrious instance of the bene- 
ficence of God that has come within human knowledge, 
and as the fact which has contributed more than all 
others to relieve the oppressive awfulness of the mystery 
in which our world is enveloped. No thankful joy 
seems to awake at the thought of so mighty an inter- 
position, and of him whose sublime appointment it was to 
undertake and accomplish it. When it is difficult to avoid 
making some allusion to him, he is acknowledged rather 
in any of his subordinate characters, than as absolutely 
a Redeemer ; or if the term Redeemer, or, our Saviour, 
is introduced, it is done as with a certain inaptitude to 
pronounce a foreign appellative ; as with a somewhat 
irksome feeling at falling in momentary contact with 
language so specifically of the christian school. And 
it is done in a manner which betrays, that the author 
does not mean all that he feels some dubious intimation 
that such a term should mean. Jesus Christ is regarded 
rather as having added to our moral advantages, than 
as having conferred that without which all the rest 
were in vain; rather as having made the passage to a 
happy futurity somewhat more commodious, than as 
having formed the passage itself over what was else 
an impassable gulf. Thus that comprehensive sum of 
blessings, called in the New Testament Salvation, or 
Redemption, is shrunk into a comparatively inconside- 
rable favour, which a less glorious messenger might 
have brought, which a less magnificent language than 
that dictated by inspiration might have described, and 
which a less costly sacrifice might have secured. 
It is consistent with this delusive idea of humar 



318 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TAS1E 

nature, and these crude, and faint, and narrow con- 
ceptions of the christian economy, that these writers 
commonly represent felicity hereafter as the pure reward 
of merit. I believe you will find this, as far as any 
allusions are made to the subject, the prevailing opinion 
through the school of polite literature. You will perceive 
it to be the real opinion of many writers who do some- 
times advert, in some phrase employed by way of 
respectful ceremony to our national creed, to the work 
or sacrifice of Christ. 

I might remark on the antichristian motives to action 
which are sanctioned and inspirited by many of these 
authors : I will only notice one, the love of glory ; that 
is, the desire of being distinguished, admired, and praised. 

No one will think of such a thing as bringing the 
christian laws in absolute prohibition of our desire to 
possess the favourable opinion of our fellow men. In 
the first place, a material portion of human happiness 
depends on the attachment of relations and friends, and 
it is right for a man to wish for the happiness resulting 
from such attachment. And since the degree in which 
he will obtain it, must depend very much on the higher 
or lower estimate which these persons entertain of his 
qualities and abilities, it is right for him to wish, while 
he endeavours to deserve, that their estimate may be 
high, in order that he may enjoy a large share of their 
affection. 

In the next place, it is too plain to be worth an 
observation, that if it were possible for a man to desire 
the respect and admiration of mankind purely as a mean 
of giving a greater efficacy to his efforts for their welfare, 
and for the promotion of the cause of heaven, while he 
would be equally gratified that any other man, in whose 
hands this mean would have exactly the same effect, 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 319 

should obtain the admiration instead of himself, this 
would be something eminently more than innocent ; it 
would be the apotheosis of a passion which in its ordi- 
nary quality deserves no better denomination than vanity. 
But where is the example ? 

In the third place, as the Creator has included this 
desire in the essential constitution of our nature, he 
intended its gratification, in some limited degree, to be 
a direct and immediate cause of pleasure. The good 
opinion of mankind, expressed in praise, or indicated 
by any other signs, pleases us by a law of the same 
order as that which constitutes mutual affection a 
pleasure, or that which is the cause that we are gratified 
by music, or the beauties and gales of spring. The in- 
dulgence of this desire is thus authorized, to a certain 
extent, by its appointment to be a source of pleasure. 

But to what extent ? It is notorious that this desire 
has, if I may so express it, an immense voracity. It has 
within itself no natural principle of limitation, since it 
is incapable of being gratified to satiety. A whole con- 
tinent applauding or admiring has not satisfied some 
men's avarice of what they called glory. To what extent, 
I repeat, may the desire be indulged ? Evidently not 
beyond that point where it begins to introduce its evil 
accessories, envy, or ungenerous competition, or re- 
sentful mortification, or disdainful comparison, or self- 
idolatry. But I appeal to each man who has deeply 
reflected on himself, or observed those around him, 
whether this desire under even a considerably limited 
degree of indulgence be not very apt to introduce some 
of these accessories ; and whether, in order to preclude 
them from his own mind, he have not at times felt it 
necessary to impose on this desire a restraint almost as 
unqualified as if he had been aiming to suppress it alto- 
gether. In wishing to prohibit an excess of its indulgence, 



320 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

he has perceived that even what had seemed to him a 
small degree has amounted, or powerfully tended, to 
that excess — except when the desire has been operating 
under the kindly and approved modification, of seeking 
to engage the affection of relations or a few friends. 
The measure therefore of this passion, compatible with 
the best condition of the mind, will be found to be 
exceedingly limited. 

Again, the desire cannot be cherished without be- 
coming a motive of action exactly in the degree in 
which it is cherished. Now if the most authoritative 
among a good man's motives of action must be the 
wish to please God, it is evident that the passion which 
supplies another motive, ought not to be allowed in a 
degree that will empower the motive thus put in force 
to contest, in the mind, the supremacy of the pious 
motive. But here, again, I appeal to the reflective man 
of conscience, whether he have not found that the desire 
of human applause, indulged in only such a degree as 
he had not, for a while, suspected of being immoderate, 
may be a motive strong enough not only to maintain a 
rivalry with what should be the supreme motive, but 
absolutely to prevail over it. In each pursuit or per- 
formance in which he has excelled, or endeavoured to 
excel, has he not sometimes been forced to observe, 
with indignant grief, that his thoughts much more 
promptly adverted to human praise, than to divine 
approbation ? And when he has been able in some 
measure to repress the passion, has he not found that 
a slight stimulus was competent to restore its impious 
ascendency ?— Now what is it that should follow from 
these observations ? What can it be, as a general 
inference, but plainly this, that though the desire of 
human applause, if it could be a calm, closely limited, 
and subordinate feeling, would be consistent with chris- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 321 

tian virtue ; yet, since it so mightily tends to an excess, 
destructive of the very essence of that virtue, it ought, 
(excepting in the cases where human estimation is 
sought as a mean toward some valuable end,) to be 
opposed and repressed in a manner not much less 
general and unconditional than if it were purely evil ? 
The special inference, available to the design of this 
essay, is, that so much of our literature as, on the con- 
trary, tends to animate the passion with new force, is 
most pernicious. 

These assertions are certainly in the spirit of the 
New Testament, which, not exacting a total extinction 
of the love of human applause, yet alludes to most of 
its operations with censure, exhibits, probably, no ap- 
proved instance of its indulgence, and abounds with em- 
phatically cogent representations, both of its pernicious 
influence when it predominates, and of its powerful 
tendency to acquire the predominance. The honest 
disciple of that divine school, being at the same time a 
self-observer, will be convinced that the degree beyond 
which the passion is not tolerated by the christian law, 
is a degree which it will be sure to reach and to exceed 
in his mind in suite of the most systematical opposition. 
The most resolute and persevering repression will still 
leave so much of this passion as Christianity will pro- 
nounce a fault or a vice. He will be anxious to assemble, 
in aid of the repressive discipline, all the arguments of 
reason, all striking examples, and all the interdictions 
of the Bible. 

Now I think I cannot be mistaken in asserting, that 
a great majority of our fine writers have gone directly 
counter to any such doctrine and discipline. No advo- 
cate will venture to deny, that they have commended 
and instigated the love of applause, of fame, of glory, 
or whatever it may be called, in a degree which, if the 

T 



322 ON THE AVFRSiON OF MEN OF TASTF 

preceding representation be just, places them in pointed 
hostility to the christian religion. Sometimes, indeed, 
when it was the planetary hour for high philosophy, or 
when they were in a splenetic mood, occasioned perhaps 
by some chagrin of disappointed vanity, they have ac- 
knowledged, and even very rhetorically exposed, the 
inanity of this same glory. Most of our ingenious 
authors have, in one place or another, been moral or 
satirical at the expense of what Pope so aptly deno- 
minates the " fool to fame." They perceived the truth, 
but as the truth did not make them free, they were 
willing after all to dignify a passion to which they felt 
themselves irretrievable slaves. And they have laboured 
to do it by celebrating, with every splendid epithet, the 
men who were impelled by this passion through the 
career in which they were the idols of servile mankind 
and their own; by describing glory as the best incentive 
to noble actions, and their worthiest reward; by placing 
the temple of Virtue (proud station of the goddess) in the 
situation to be a mere introduction to that of Fame ; by 
lamenting that so few, and their unfortunate selves not 
of the number, can " climb the steep where that proud 
temple shines afar :" and by intimating a charge of 
meanness of spirit against those, who have no generous 
ardour to distinguish themselves from the crowd, by 
deeds calculated and designed to pitch them aloft in 
gazing admiration. If sometimes the ungracious recol- 
lection strikes them, and seems likely to strike their 
readers, that this admiration is provokingly capricious 
and perverse, since men have gained it without rightful 
claims, and lost it without demerit, and since all kinds 
of fools have offered the incense to all kinds of villains, 
they escape from the disgust and from the benefit of 
this recollection by saying, that it is honourable fame 
that noble spirits seek ; for they despise the ignorant 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 323 

multitude, and seek applause by none but worthy 
actions, and from none but worthy judges. Almost 
every one of these writers will sometimes, perhaps, 
advert to the approbation of the Supreme Being, as 
what wise and good men will value most ; but such 
an occasional acknowledgment feebly counteracts the 
effect of many glowing sentiments and descriptions of 
a contrary tendency. — If this be a correct animad- 
version on our popular fine writers, there can be no 
question whether they be likely to animate their readers 
with christian motives of action. 

I will remark only on one particular more, namely, 
the culpable license, careless, if not sometimes malig- 
nant, taken by the lighter order of these writers, and 
by some even of the graver, in their manner of ridi- 
culing the cant and extravagance by which hypocrisy, 
fanaticism, or the peculiarities of a sect or a period, 
may have disgraced or falsified christian doctrines. 
Sometimes, indeed, they have selected and burlesqued 
modes of expression which were not cant, and which 
ignorance and impiety alone would have dared to ridi- 
cule. And often, in exposing to contempt the follies 
of notion or language or manners, by which a christian 
of good taste deplores that the profession of the gospel 
should ever have been deformed, they take not the 
smallest care to preserve a clear separation between 
what taste and sense have a right to explode, and what 
piety bids to reverence. By this criminal carelessness, 
(to give it no stronger denomination,) they have fixed 
repulsive and irreverent associations on the evangelical 
truth itself, for which many persons, when afterwards 
they have yielded their faith and affection to that truth, 
have had cause to wish that certain volumes had gone 
into the fire, instead of coming into their hands. Many 

y2 



324* ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

others, who have not thus become its converts, retain the 
bad impression unabated, and cherish the disgust. Gay 
writers ought to know that this is dangerous ground. 

I am sorrv that this extended censure on works of 
genius and taste could not be prosecuted with a more 
marked application, and with more discriminative re- 
ferences than the continual repetition of the expressions, 
" elegant literature," and " these writers." It might be 
a service of some value to the evangelical cause, if a 
work were written containing a faithful estimate, indi- 
vidually, of the most popular writers of the last century 
and a half, in respect to the important subject of these 
comments ; with formal citations from some of their 
works, and a candid statement of the general tendency 
of others. In an essay like this it is impossible to 
make an enumeration of names, or pass a judgment, 
except in a very cursory manner, on any particular 
author. Even the several classes of authors, which I 
mentioned some time back, as coming under the accu- 
sation, shall detain you but a short time. 

The Moral Philosophers for the most part seem 
anxious to avoid every thing that might render them 
liable to be mistaken for Christian Divines. They regard 
their department as a science complete in itself; and 
they investigate the foundation of morality, define its 
laws, and affix its sanctions, in a manner generally so 
much apart from Christianity, that the reader would 
almost conclude that religion to be another science 



complete in itself.* An entire separation, it is true, 

• When it happens sometimes, that a moral topic hardly can be dis- 
posed of without some recognition of its involving, or being intimately 
connected with, a theological doctrine, it is curious to notice, with what 
an air of indifference, somewhat partaking of contempt, one of these 
writers will observe, that that view of the matter is the business of the 
divines, with whose department he does not pretend to interfere. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 325 

cannot well be preserved ; since Christianity has decided 
some moral questions on which reason was dubious or 
silent ; and since that final retribution, which the New 
Testament has so luminously foreshown, brings evi- 
dently the greatest of sanctions. To make no reference 
in the course of inculcating moral principles, to a 
judgment to come, if there be an understood admission 
that it is actually revealed, would look like systematic 
irreligion. But still it is striking to observe how small 
a portion of the ideas, (relative to this and other points 
of the greatest moral interest,) which distinguish the 
New Testament from other books, many moral philo- 
sophers have thought indispensable to a theory in which 
they professed to include the sum of the duty and 
interests of man. A serious reader is constrained to 
feel that either there is too much in that book, or too 
little in theirs. He will perceive that, in the inspired 
book, the moral principles are intimately interwoven 
with all those doctrines which could not have been 
known but through revelation. He will find also in 
this superior book, a vast number of ideas avowedly 
designed to interest the affections in favour of all moral 
principles and virtues. The " quickening spirit," thus 
breathed among what might else be dry and lifeless, is 
drawn from considerations of the divine mercy, the 
compassion of the Redeemer, the assurance of aid from 
heaven in the difficult strife to be what the best prin- 
ciples prescribe, the relationship subsisting between 
good men on earth and those who are departed ; and 
other kindred topics, quite out of the range to which 
the mere moral preceptors appear to hold themselves 
limited. The system of morals, as placed in the tem- 
perature of such considerations, has the character and 
effect of a different zone. Thus, while any given virtue, 
equally prescribed in the treatise of the moral philo- 



326 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

sopher and the christian code, would in mere definition 
be the same in both, the manner in which it bears on 
the heart and conscience must be greatly different. 

It is another difference also of momentous conse- 
quence, if it be found that the christian doctrine declares 
the virtues of a good man not to be the cause of his 
acceptance with God, and that the philosophic moralists 
disclaim any other. On the whole it must be concluded, 
that there cannot but be something very defective in 
that theory of morality which makes so slight an ac- 
knowledgment of the religion of Christ, and takes so 
little of its peculiar character. The philosophers place 
the religion in the relation of a diminutive satellite to 
the sphere of moral interests ; useful as throwing a few 
rays on that side of it on which the solar light of human 
wisdom could not directly shine ; but that it can impart 
a vital warmth, or claims to be acknowledged paramount 
in dignity and influence, some of them seem not to have 
a suspicion. 

No doubt, innumerable reasonings and conclusions 
may be advanced on moral subjects which shall be true 
on a foundation of their own, equally in the presence 
of the evangelical system and in its absence. Inde- 
pendently of that system, it were easy to illustrate 
the utility of virtue, the dignity which it confers on a 
rational being, its accordance to the "reason and fitness 
of things," its conformity and analogy to much of what 
may be discerned in the order of the universe. It 
would also have been easy to pass from virtue in the 
abstract, into an illustration and enforcement of the 
several distinct virtues, as arranged in a practical 
system. And if it should be asked, Why may not some 
writers employ their speculations on those parts and 
views of moral truth which are thus independent of the 
gospel, leaving it to other men to christianize the whole 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 327 

by the addition of the evangelical relations, motives, 
and conditions ? — I readily answer, that this may some- 
times very properly be done. An author may render 
good service by demonstrating, for instance, the utility 
of virtue in general, or of any particular virtue, as 
shown in its effect on the prosperity of states, of smaller 
communities, and of individuals ; in its conduciveness 
to health, mental tranquillity, social confidence, and the 
like. In doing this, he would expressly take a marked 
ground, and aim at a specific object. He would not 
(or should not) let it be imagined for a moment that 
such particular views embrace all that is of essential 
interest in the reasons and relations of moral rectitude. 
It would be plainly understood that other conside- 
rations, of the highest importance, recognising, in all 
our obligations to virtue, our relations with God, with 
a spiritual economy, with a future life, are indispensable 
to a complete moral theory. But the charge against 
the moral philosophers is meant to be applied to those 
who, not professing to have any such specific and 
limited scope, but assuming the office of moralist in its 
most comprehensive character, and making themselves 
responsible as teachers of virtue in its whole extent, 
have yet quite forgotten the vital implication of ethical 
with evangelical truth. 

When I mention our Historians, it will instantlv 
occur to you, that the very foremost names in this 
department import every thing that is deadly to the 
christian religion itself, as a divine communication, and 
therefore lie under a condemnation of a different kind. 
But may not many others, who would have repelled the 
imputation of being enemies to the christian cause, be 
arraigned of having forgotten what was due from its 
friends ? The historian intends his work to have the 



328 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

effect of a series of moral estimates of the persons whose 
actions he records ; now, if he believes that a Judge 
of the world will come at length, and pronounce on the 
very characters that his work adjudges, it is one of the 
plainest dictates of good sense, that all the awards of the 
historian should be faithfully coincident with the judg- 
ments which may be expected ultimately from that 
supreme authority. Those distinctions of character 
which the historian applauds as virtues, or censures 
as vices, should be exactly the same qualities, which 
the language already heard from that Judge certifies us 
that he will approve or condemn. It is worse than 
foolish to erect a literary court of morals and human 
character, of which the maxims, the language, the 
decisions, and the judges, will be equally the objects 
of contempt before Him, whose intelligence will in- 
stantly distinguish and place in light the right and the 
wrong of all time. What a wretched abasement will 
overwhelm on that day some of the pompous historians, 
who were called by others, and accounted by themselves, 
the high authoritative censors of an age, and whose 
verdict was to fix on each name perpetual honour or 
infamy, if they shall find many of the questions and the 
decisions of that tribunal proceed on principles which 
they would have been ashamed to apply, or never took 
the trouble to understand ! How will they be con- 
founded, if some of the men whom they had extolled, 
are consigned to ignominy, and some that they had 
despised, are applauded by the voice at which the world 
will tremble and be silent ! But such a sad humiliation 
may, I think, be apprehended for many of the historians, 
by every serious christian reader who shall take the hint 
of this subject along with him through their works. He 
will not seldom feel that the writers seem uninformed, 
while they remark and decide on actions and characters, 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 329 

that a final Lawgiver has come from heaven, or that he 
will come, or on what account he will come, yet once 
more. Their very diction often abjures the plain chris- 
tian denominations of good and evil ; nor do I need to 
recount the specious and fallacious terms which they 
have employed in their place. How then can a mind 
which learns to think in their manner, learn at the same 
time to think in his from whom it will, however, be 
found no light matter to have dissented, when his judg- 
ment shall be declared for the last time in this world ? 

The various interesting sets of short Essays, with the 
Spectator and Rambler at their head, must have had a 
very considerable influence, during a season at least, 
and not yet entirely extinct, on the moral taste of the 
public. Perhaps, however, it is too late in the day for 
any interest to be taken in religious animadversions 
which might with propriety have been ventured upon 
the Spectator, when it was the general and familiar 
favourite with the reading portion of the community.* 
A work of such wide compass, and avowedly assuming 
the office of guardian and teacher of all good principles, 
gave fair opportunities for a, christian writer to in- 

* Within the thirty or forty years antecedent to the date of the 
present edition, and even within the shorter interval since the slight 
remarks in the text were written, there has been a surprising change 
in the tone of our literature, and in the public taste which it both 
consults and forms. The smooth elegance, the gentle graces, the 
amusing, easy, and not deep current of sentiment, of which Addison 
is our finest example, have come to be regarded as languid, and 
almost insipid ; and the passion is for force, energy, bold develope- 
ment of principles, and every kind of high stimulus. This has been 
the inevitable accompaniment of the prodigious commotion in the 
state of the world, the rousing of the general mind from its long 
lethargy, to an activity and an exertion of power which nothing can 
quell, which is destined to a continually augmenting operation till 
the condition of the world be changed. This new spirit of our lite* 



330 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

troduce, excepting what is strictly termed science, a 
little of every subject affecting the condition and 
happiness of men. Why then was it fated that the 
stupendous circumstance of the redemption by the 
Messiah, of which the importance is commensurate 
with the whole interests of man, with the value of his 
immortal spirit, with the government of his Creator in 
this world, and with the happiness of eternity, should 
not a few times, in the long course and extensive moral 
jurisdiction of that work, be set forth in the most 
explicit, uncompromising, and solemn manner, in the 
full aspect and importance which it bears in the chris- 
tian revelation, with the directness and emphasis of 
apostolic fidelity ? Why should not a few of the most pe- 
culiar of the doctrines, comprehended in the primary one 
of salvation by the Mediator, have been clothed with 
the fascinating elegance of Addison, from whose pen 
many persons would have received an occasional evan- 
gelical lesson with incomparably more candour than 
from any professed divine ? A pious and benevolent 
man, such as the avowed advocate of Christianity ought to 
be, should not have been contented that so many thou- 
sands of minds as his writings were adapted to instruct 



rature is a great advantage gained; but gained at a grievous cost; 
for we have in its train an immense quantity of affectation : all sorts 
and sizes of authors must be aiming at vigour, point, bold strokes, 
originality. The consequence is, an ample exhibition of contortion? 
tricks of surprise, paradox, headlong dash, factitious fulmina^ion, 
and turgid inanity. In some of the grossest instances, this ape of 
mental force and freedom stares and swaggers, and spouts a half- 
drunken rant. One wonders to see how much even some of the 
ablest among the writers of the present times have gone into the bad 
fashion, have discarded the masculine simplicity so graceful to in- 
tellectual power, and spoiled compositions admirable for vigorous 
thinking by a continual affectation, which carries them along in a 
dashing capering sort of style, as if determined that the t; march of 
intellect'* shall be a dance to a fiddle. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 331 

and to charm, should have been left, for any thing that he 
very unequivocally attempted to the contrary in his most 
popular works, to end a life which he had contributed to 
refine, acquainted but slightly with the grand security 
of happiness after death. Or if it could not be deemed 
his duty to introduce in a formal manner any of the 
most specifically evangelical subjects, it might at least 
have been expected, that some of the many serious 
essays scattered through the Spectator should have 
more of a christian strain, more recognition of the 
great oracle, in the speculations concerning the Deity, 
and the gravest moral subjects. There might, without 
hazard of symbolizing with the dreaded fanaticism of 
the preceding age, have been more assimilation of what 
may be called, as it now stands, a literary fashion of 
religion, to the spirit of the New Testament. From 
him also, as a kind of dictator among the elegant 
writers of the age, it might have been expected that he 
would set himself, with the same decision and virtuous 
indignation which he made his Cato display against the 
betrayers of Roman liberty and laws, to denounce that 
ridicule which has wounded religion by a careless or 
by a crafty manner of holding up its abuses to scorn : 
but of this impropriety (to use an accommodating term,) 
the Spectator itself is not free from examples. 

Addison wrote a book expressly in defence of the 
religion of Christ ; but to be the dignified advocate of 
a cause, and to be its humble disciple, may be very 
different things. An advocate has a feeling of making 
himself important; he seems to confer something on 
the cause ; but as a disciple, he must surrender to feel 
littleness, humility, and submission. Self-importance 
might find more to gratify it in becoming the patron of a 
beggar, than the servant of a potentate. Addison was, 
moreover, very unfoitunate, for any thing like justice to 



332 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

genuine Christianity, in the class of persons with whom 
he associated, and among whom he did not hold his 
pre-eminence by any such imperial tenure, as could make 
aim careless of the policy of pleasing them by a general 
conformity of sentiment. One can imagine with what 
a perfect storm of ridicule he would have been greeted, 
on entering one of his celebrated coffee-houses of wits 
on the day after he should have published in the Spec- 
tator a paper, for instance, on the necessity of being 
devoted to the service of Jesus Christ. The friendship 
of the world ought to be a " pearl of great price," for 
its cost is very serious. 

The powerful and lofty spirit of Johnson was far 
more capable of scorning the ridicule, and defying the 
opposition, of wits and worldlings. And yet his social 
life must have been greatly unfavourable to a deep and 
simple consideration of christian truth, and the cul- 
tivation of christian sentiment. Might not even his 
imposing and unchallenged ascendency itself betray 
him to admit, insensibly, an injurious influence on his 
mind ? He associated with men of whom many were 
very learned, some extremely able, but comparatively 
few made any decided profession of piety ; and perhaps 
a considerable number were such as would in other 
society have shown a strong propensity to irreligion. 
This however dared not to appear undisguisedly in 
Johnson's presence ; and it is impossible not to revere 
the strength and noble severity that made it so cautious. 
But this constrained abstinence from overt irreligion had 
the effect of preventing the repugnance of his judg- 
ment and religious feelings to the frequent society of 
men from whom he would have recoiled, if the real 
temper of their minds, in regard to the most important 
subjects, had been unreservedly forced on his view. 
Decorum toward religion being preserved, he would 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 333 

take no rigorously judicial account of the internal 
character of those who brought so finely into play his 
mental powers and resources, in conversations on lite- 
rature, moral philosophy, and general intelligence ; and 
who could enrich every matter of social argument 
by their learning, their genius, or their knowledge of 
mankind. But if, while every thing unequivocally 
hostile to Christianity was kept silent in his company, 
there was nevertheless a latent impiety in possession of 
the heart, it would inevitably, however unobviously, 
infuse something of its spirit into the communications 
of such men. And, through the complacency which 
he felt in the high intellectual intercourse, some in- 
fection of the noxious element would insinuate its 
way into his own ideas and feelings. For it is hardly 
possible for the strongest and most vigilant mind, under 
the genial influence of eloquence, fancy, novelty, and 
bright intelligence, interchanged in amicable collision, 
to avoid admitting some effluvia (if I may so express 
it) breathing from the most interior quality of such 
associates, and tending to produce an insensible assimi- 
lation ; especially if there should happen to be, in ad- 
dition, a conciliating exterior of accomplishment, grace, 
and liberal manners. Thus the very predominance by 
which Johnson could repress the direct irreligion of 
statesmen, scholars, wits, and accomplished men of 
the world, might- by retaining him their intimate or 
frequent associate, subject him to meet the influence of 
that irreligion acting in a manner too indirect and 
refined to excite either hostility or caution. 

But indeed if his caution was excited, there might 
still be a possibility of self-deception in the case. The 
great achievement and conscious merit of upholding, 
by his authority, a certain standard of good principles 
among such men, and compelling an acquiescence at 



334 OX THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

least, wherever he was present, might tend to make 
himself feel satisfied with that order of sentiments, 
though materially lower than the standard which his 
conscientious judgment must have adopted, if he had 
formed it under the advantage of long and thoughtful 
retirement and exemption from the influence of such 
associates. It would be difficult for him to confess to 
himself that what was high enough for a repressive 
domination over impiety, might yet be below the level 
of true Christianity. It is hard for a man to suspect 
himself deficient in that very thing in which he not 
only excels other men, but mends them. Nothing can 
well be more unfortunate for christian attainments, even 
in point of right judgment, than to be habitually in 
society where a man will feel as if he held a saintly 
eminence of character in merely securing a decent 
neutrality, or a semblance of slight partial assent, in 
other words a forbearance of hostility, to that divine 
law of faith and morals, which is set up over that society 
and all mankind, as the grand distinguisher between 
those who are in light and those who are in darkness, 
those who are approved and those who are condemned ; 
and which has been sent on earth with a demand, not 
of this worthless non-aggression, but of cordial entire 
addiction and devoted zeal. 

If there be any truth in the representations which 
make so large a part of this essay, Johnson's continual 
immersion in what is denominated polite literature, must 
have subjected him to the utmost action and pervasion 
of an influence of which the antichristian effect cannot 
be neutralized, without a more careful study than we 
have reason to believe he gave, or even had time to give, 
to the doctrine of religion as a distinct independent 
subject. 

It must however be admitted that this illustrious 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 33S 

author, who, though here mentioned only in the class 
of essayists, is to be ranked among the greatest moral 
philosophers, is less at variance with the essentials of 
the christian economy, than the very great majority of 
either of these classes of authors. His speculations 
tend in a far less degree to beguile the approving and 
admiring reader into a spirit, which feels repelled in 
estrangement and disgust on turning to the instructions 
of Christ and his apostles ; and he has more explicit 
and solemn references to the grand purpose of human 
life, to a future judgment, and to eternity, than almost 
any other of our elegant moralists has had the piety 
or the courage to make. There is so much that most 
powerfully coincides and cooperates with christian 
truth, that the disciple of Christianity the more regrets 
to meet occasionally a sentiment, respecting, perhaps, 
the rule to judge by in the review of life, the con- 
solations in death, the effect of repentance, or the terms 
of acceptance with God, which he cannot reconcile with 
the evangelical theory, nor with those principles of 
christian faith in which Johnson avowed his belief. In 
such a writer he cannot but deem such deviations a 
matter of grave culpability. 

Omission is his other fault. Though he did introduce 
in his serious speculations more distinct allusions to 
religious ideas, than most other moralists, yet he did 
not introduce them so often as may be claimed from a 
writer who frequently carries seriousness to the utmost 
pitch of solemnity. There scarcely ever was an author, 
not formally theological, in whose works a large pro- 
portion of explicit christian sentiment was more re- 
quisite for a consistent entireness of character, than in 
the moral writings of Johnson. No writer ever more 
completely exposed and blasted the folly and vanity of 
the greatest number of human pursuits. The visage 



336 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

of Medusa could not have darted a more fatal glance 
against the tribe of gay triflers, the competitors of 
ambition, the proud exhibiters in the parade of wealth, 
the rhapsodists on the sufficiency of what they call phi- 
losophy for happiness, the grave consumers of life in 
useless speculations, and every other order of " walkers 
in a vain show." His judicial sentence is directed, as 
with a keen and mephitic blast, on almost all the most 
favourite pursuits of mankind. But it was so much 
the more peculiarly his duty to insist, with fulness and 
emphasis, on that one model of character, that one 
grand employment of life, which is enjoined by heaven, 
and will stand the test of that unshrinking severity of 
judgment, which should be exercised by every one who 
looks forward to the test which he is finally to abide. 
No author has more impressively displayed the misery 
of human life ; he laid himself under so much the 
stronger obligation to unfold most explicitly the only 
effectual consolations, the true scheme of felicity as far 
as it is attainable on earth, and that delightful prospect 
of a better region, which has so often inspired exultation 
in the most melancholy situations. No writer has more 
expressively illustrated the rapidity of time, and the 
shortness of life ; he ought so much the more fully to 
have dwelt on the views of that great futurity at which 
his readers are admonished by the illustration that they 
will speedily arrive. No writer can make more poignant 
reflections on the pains of guilt ; was it not indispen- 
sable that he should oftener have directed the mind 
suffering this bitterest kind of distress to that great 
sacrifice once offered for sin ? No writer represents 
with more striking, mortifying, humiliating truth the 
failure of human resolutions, and the feebleness of 
human efforts, in the contest with corrupt propensity, 
evil habit, and adapted temptation ; why did not this 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. S3? 

melancholy observation and experience prompt a very 
frequent recollection, and emphatical expression of the 
importance of that assistance from on high, without 
which the divine word has so often repeated the warning 
that our labours will fail ? 

In extending the censure to the Poets, it is gratifying 
to meet an exception in the most elevated of all their 
tribe. Milton's consecrated genius might harmoniously 
have mingled with the angels that announced the 
Messiah to be come, or that, on the spot and at the 
moment of his departure, predicted his coming again ; 
might have shamed to silence the muses of paganism ; 
or softened the pains of a christian martyr. Part of 
the poetical works of Young, those of Watts, and of 
Cowper, have placed them among the permanent bene- 
factors of mankind ; as owing to them there is a 
popular poetry in the true spirit of Christianity ; a 
poetry which has imparted, and is destined to impart, 
the best sentiments to innumerable minds. Works of 
great poetical genius that should be thus faithful to true 
religion, might be regarded as trees by the side of that 
" river of the water of life," having in their fruit and 
foliage a virtue to contribute to " the healing of the 
nations." — But on the supposition that there were a 
man sufficiently discerning, impartial, and indefatigable 
for a research throughout the general body of our 
poetical literature, it would be curious to see what kind 
of religious system, and what account of the state of 
man, as viewed under moral estimate, and in relation 
to the future destiny, would be afforded by a digested 
assemblage of all the most marked sentiments, supplied 
by the vast majority of the poets, for such a scheme of 
moral and religious doctrine. — But if it would be 
exceedingly amusing to observe the process and the 

z 



238 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

fantastic result, it would in the next place be very sad 
to consider, that these fallacies have been insinuated by 
the charms of poetry into countless thousands of minds, 
with a beguilement that has, first, diverted them from 
a serious attention to the gospel, then confirmed them 
in a habitual dislike of it, and finally operated to betray 
some of them to the doom which, beyond the grave, 
awaits the neglect or rejection of the religion of Christ. 
You have probably seen Pope cited as a christian 
poet, by some pious authors, whose anxiety to impress 
reluctant genius into an appearance of favouring Chris- 
tianity, has credulously seized on any occasional verse, 
which seemed an echo of the sacred doctrines. No 
reader can exceed me in admiring the discriminative 
thought, the shrewd moral observation, the finished 
and felicitous execution, and the galaxy of poetical 
beauties, which combine to give a peculiar lustre to the 
writings of Pope. But I cannot refuse to perceive, 
that almost every allusion in his lighter works to the 
names, the facts, and the topics, that specially belong 
to the religion of Christ, is in a style and spirit of 
profane banter ; and that, in most of his graver ones, 
where he meant to be dignified, he took the utmost 
care to divest his thoughts of all the mean vulgarity 
of christian associations. " Off, ye profane ! " might 
seem to have been his signal to all evangelical ideas, 
when he began his Essay on Man ; and they were 
obedient, and fled; for if you detach the detail and 
illustrations, so as to lay bare the outline and general 
principles of the work, it will stand confest an elaborate 
attempt to redeem the whole theory of the condition 
and interests of man, both in life and death, from all 
the explanations imposed on it by an unphilosophical 
revelation from heaven. And in the happy riddance 
of this despised though celestial light, it exhibits a sort 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 339 

of moon-light vision, of thin impalpable abstractions, 
at which a speculatist may gaze, with a dubious wonder 
whether they be realities or phantoms ; but which a 
practical man will in vain try to seize and turn to 
account ; and which an evangelical man will disdain to 
accept in exchange for those forms of truth which his 
religion brings to him as real living friends, instructors, 
and consolers ; which present themselves to him, at his 
return from a profitless adventure in that shadowy 
dreary region, with an effect like that of meeting the 
countenances of his affectionate domestic associates, 
on his awaking from the fantastic succession of vain 
efforts and perplexities, among strange objects, incidents, 
and people, in a bewildering dream. — But what defe- 
rence to Christianity was to be expected, when such a 
man as Bolingbroke was the genius whose imparted 
splendour was to illuminate, and the demigod* whose 
approbation was to crown, the labours which, accord- 
ing to the wish and presentiment of the poet, were to 
conjoin these two venerable names in endless fame ? 

I it be said for some parts of these dim speculations, 
that though Christianity comes forward as the practical 
dispensation of truth, yet there must be, in remote 
abstraction behind, some grand, ultimate, elementary 
truths, which this dispensation does not recognise, but 
even intercepts from our view by a system of less re- 
fined elements, in which doctrines of a more contracted, 
palpable, and popular form, of comparatively local 
purport and relation, are imposed in substitution for 
the higher and more general and abstracted truths — I 
answer, And what did the poet, or " the master of the 
poet and the song,*' know about those truths, and how 
did they come by their information. 

* He is so named somewhere in Pope's Works. 
z2 



34-0 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE. 

A serious observer must acknowledge with regret, 
that such a class of productions as novels, in which 
folly has tried to please in a greater number of shapes 
than the poet enumerates in the Paradise of Fools, is 
capable of producing a very considerable effect on the 
moral taste of the community. A large proportion of 
them however are } robably of too slight and insipid a 
consistence to have any more specific counteraction to 
christian principles than that of mere folly in general ; 
excepting indeed that the most flimsy of them will occa- 
sionally contribute their mite of mischief, by alluding 
to a christian profession, in a manner that identifies it 
with the cant by which hypocrites have aped it, or the 
extravagance with which fanatics have inflated or dis- 
torted it. But a great and direct force of counteracting 
influence is emitted from those, which eloquently display 
characters of eminent vigour and virtue, when it is a 
virtue having no basis in religion ; a factitious thing 
resulting from the mixture of dignified pride with 
generous feeling ; or constituted of those philosophical 
principles which are too often accompanied, in these 
works, by an avowed or strongly intimated contempt 
of the interference of any religion, especially the chris- 
tian. If the case is mended in some of these productions 
into which an awkward religion has found its way, it is 
rather because the characters excite less interest of an}' 
kind, than because any which they do excite is favour- 
able to religion. No reader is likely to be impressed 
with the dignity of being a christian by seeing, in one 
of these works, an attempt to combine that character 
with the fine gentleman, by means of a most ludicrous 
apparatus of amusements and sacraments, churches and 
theatres, morning-prayers and evening-balls. Nor will 
it perhaps be of any great service to the christian 
cause, that some others of them profess to exemplify 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 341 

and defend, against the cavils and scorn of infidels, a 
religion of which it does not appear that the writers 
would have discovered the merits, had it not been 
established by law. One may doubt whether any one 
will be more than amused by the venerable priest, who 
is introduced probably among libertine lords and giddy 
girls, to maintain the sanctity of terms, and attempt 
the illustration of doctrines, which these well-meaning 
writers do not perceive that the worthy gentleman's 
college, diocesan, and library, have but very imperfectly 
enabled him to understand. If the reader even wished 
to be more than amused, it is easy to imagine how much 
he would be likely to be instructed and affected, by 
such an illustration or defence of the christian religion, 
as the writer of a fashionable novel would deem a 
graceful or admissible expedient for filling up his plot. 
One cannot close such a review of our fine writers 
without melancholy reflections. That cause which will 
raise all its zealous friends to a sublime eminence on 
*he last and most solemn day the world has to behold, 
and will make them great for ever, presented its claims 
full in sight of each of these authors in his time. The 
very lowest of those claims could not be less than a 
conscientious solicitude to beware of every thing that 
could in any point injure the sacred cause. This claim 
has been slighted by so many as have lent attraction to 
an order of moral sentiments greatly discordant with 
its principles. And so many are gone into eternity 
under the charge of having employed their genius, as 
the magicians their enchantments against Moses, to 
counteract the Saviour of the world. 

Under what restrictions, then, ought the study of 
polite literature to be conducted ? I cannot but have 
foreseen that this question must return at the end of 
these observations ; and I am sorry to have no better 



342 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTF, &C. 

answer to give than before, when the question came in 
the way, inconveniently enough, to perplex the con- 
clusion to be drawn from the considerations on the 
tendency of the classical literature. Polite literature 
will necessarily continue to. be a large department of 
the grand school of intellectual and moral cultivation. 
The evils therefore which it may contain, will as cer- 
tainly affect in some degree the minds of the successive 
pupils, and teachers also, as the hurtful influence of the 
climate, or of the seasons, will affect their bodies. To 
be thus affected, is a part of the destiny under which 
they are born, in a civilized country. It is indispensable 
to acquire the advantage ; it is inevitable to incur the 
evil. The means of counteraction will amount, it is 
to be feared, to no more than palliatives. Nor can 
these be proposed in any specific method. All that I 
can do, is, to urge on the reader of taste the very 
serious duty of continually recalling to his mind, and 
if he be a parent or preceptor, of cogently representing 
to those he instructs, the real character of religion as 
exhibited in the christian revelation, and the reasons 
which command an inviolable adherence to it. 



FfNIS, 



r :lay printer, BREAD-STREET-HItl,. 



